


Through the Looking Glass

by sheepybaa



Series: Please do shut up, Miss Stark [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Crossover, Dimension Travel, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Marvel hates its cinematic characters I stg, Soulmates, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepybaa/pseuds/sheepybaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony Stark--billionaire, genius, Playboy model, philanthropist--meets Tony Stark, except Tony isn't short for Antonia.  It's short for <i>Anthony</i>.  </p><p>Tony is far, far too sober to be having this conversation.  </p><p>(Or: the canon crossover that no one asked for, but which the author really couldn't help.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, this happened. I tried really, really hard to fight it, but this thing has been fighting its way out of my brain since _Please do shut up, Miss Stark_ reached a logical conclusion, and this monster finally reached a reasonable stopping point. Enjoy, I guess!

Tony really doesn't know how this happened. 

" _What the fuck,_ " Clint says over the comms, voice barely intelligible over the staticky roar of the giant portal that has materialized in the middle of Midtown, right in the middle of their battle with some very annoying Hydra leftovers. 

"JARVIS, any answers to that question?" Tony asks loudly, watching with mild interest as the surrounding concrete and debris begins to gravitate towards the phenomenon, which seems to only be increasing in power. Tony _really_ wants to know how it's doing that. 

"None currently, Miss; as far as my sensors can tell this is some kind of--" JARVIS cuts off, static garbling whatever he was going to say next. Tony frowns as her display flickers. 

"J?" She tries to trigger him again, but she isn't getting any response. "J, you read me?" Goddammit.

" _Tony!_ " Steve's voice comes through the broken comms, sounding unusually panicked. " _Tony, can you hear me?_ "

"Yes, darling dearest; keep your tightpants on--" she mutters, distracted, still trying to calibrate her displays as she digs her feet into the ground to keep herself steady. 

" _Tony, Bruce says you're too close! You've got to move away--_ "

"Yeah, yeah, just lemme--aha!" Her displays are back online and--oh. Oh, _shit._

The portal's picked up speed; its gravitational pull is far more powerful than it was just seconds ago and still increasing at an alarming rate. Tony hastily activates her repulsors, cursing her own inattention, but her sensors are going balls to the wall nuts and she realizes--

She's not getting away. 

"Shit, I'm fucked, I'm fucked!" she curses over the comm, putting as much power into her forward thrust as she can before she hits the horizon and goes--somewhere. "Shit, shit, _shit!_ Fuck, Steve, I'm going in, I'm going--"

The last thing she sees is Steve's red white and blue blur coming at her out of nowhere, flickering into her periphery right as her repulsors give out and she's sucked into oblivion. 

 

The world is muffled. 

"You said she landed on your balcony?"

"Yeah, two hours ago. I've even got footage of it; JARVIS recorded the whole thing."

Tony's head hurts. 

"And you're sure she's not a Skrull?"

"Well, obviously we can't rule out all kinds of shapeshifters, but her clothing was pretty removable and I was more concerned about the set of armor, obviously..."

Tony's mouth feels like it's full of cotton. She tries to open her eyes, but just as quickly she's shutting them with a wince--someone's got the brights on in here, what the _hell_. On the 'bright' side (haha, Tony's so funny), they keep her from having Afghanistan flashbacks, so things could be worse. 

Voice 1 and Voice 2 don't seem to have realized she's awake, still talking quietly, so Tony decides to do what she does best: draw attention to herself. She groans loudly, shifting and stretching where she lays as she gets her bearings, listening for her captors' reactions, and freezes when she feels her movement arrested. 

There are--padded cuffs around her wrists and ankles. 

Her limbs jerk reflexively against the restraints. "What the _hell--?_ "

"Oh, good, looks like Sleeping Beauty's awake," one of the voices says, drawing closer to her with the sound of footsteps. Tony grits her teeth and cracks open her eyes, blinking through the pain as her vision slowly adjusts and the world swims into focus enough for her to recognize a face above her. 

"Back up, buddy, or we're gonna have a problem," she bites out, hands clenching into fists despite the padded shackles holding her to the bed. 

"Oh, we already have a problem, princess," the man replies, scowling at her with a strangely familiar glare. "We had problems when you stole my tech. That suit you were wearing is property of Stark Industries."

"Stark Indus--? Who the fuck do you think you're _talking to,_ pal? Let me GO!" Tony thrashes against her restraints, indignant rage making her sharp and angry. 

"There's no point in struggling. Those were made to hold back the Hulk."

Tony stops struggling. "Nat?" she blurts in disbelief, craning her neck off the bed. "Natasha?"

Sure enough, there she is, standing at the other end of the room looking at Tony with a face she usually reserves for people who aren't part of the Avengers, that blank I-don't-like-you-I-don't-trust-you look she used to give Tony sometimes back when she first started posing as Natalie Rushman, and as Tony stares at her, the coldness only intensifies. Tony feels a chill run down her spine. 

"Natasha, what the hell?" Tony says incredulously, kicking out in the direction of her spysassin friend with more disbelief than actual anger. "Since when are we tying up our injured teammates? I thought that--"

Tony's blood goes cold. "Wait." She can feel the heat drain out of her face as she comes to a disturbing conclusion. Mystery Asshole's regarding at her with a sort of confused but angry suspicion that's starting to make a chilling sort of sense, despite Tony still not knowing who the hell he is. Tony looks back at Natasha. "Am I--am I compromised, somehow?"

Natasha regards her solemnly. "Less compromised," her eerily distant friend says, "and more of an unknown element."

Tony pauses. "'Unknown element.'" she repeats. "How exactly am _I_ an unknown element?"

"Which do you want first, your literal falling out of the sky, or your unexplainable possession of an Iron Man suit?" Mystery Asshole drawls, his sharp tone at odds with what he's saying. Tony bristles. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, 'unexplainable possession'?" she snaps, just about ready to flip the goddamn bed, she's so annoyed. "What's so 'unexplainable' about it? I built it!"

Natasha raises an eyebrow, and Asshole snorts. 

"Nice try, Rosie the Riveter," he quips, quirking an eyebrow. He exchanges a look with Natasha before shaking his head and stalking out of the room, slamming the door behind him. 

Once he's gone, Natasha goes back to staring at her. 

"Would you like to tell me how you really got it?" her supposed friend asks quietly, raising one perfectly groomed eyebrow. Tony's just about had it. 

"Go shove it up your goddamn ass, Nat, you poisonous bitch," Tony spits, jerking rebelliously against her restraints. 

Natasha--or maybe the Black Widow, with the shit she's pulling--doesn't say anything, just turns around and walks calmly out of the room. 

The click of the door echoes in the empty room around her. 

" _What the fuck?_ " Tony spews in angry disbelief. Nobody answers her. 

What in the actual fuck is going on right now? 

Tony spends fifteen or twenty frustrating minutes struggling heavily against her padded restraints on the easily queen-sized bed, jerking and thrashing and swearing with all of her pent up frustration at both her shitty situation and her friend's unexpected betrayal. The bed, despite her efforts, does not budge an inch. All she does is piss herself off further, leaving her panting and sweaty on the bed after she gives up while her mind positively boils with rage. 

Once she calms down, breath slowing and sweat drying in an uncomfortable, itchy layer on her skin, Tony can think a little more rationally. 

The last thing she remembers before waking up to this shit is falling through that mysterious, sparkly portal. Mystery Asshole said she fell from the sky--so, they probably found her wherever the portal dumped her out. 

Tony blinks slowly and tries to rationalize things. Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Thor, and Steve were all on the other side with her. As far as she knows, none of them (besides Steve, the stupid, self-sacrificing idiot, but she'll think about that after she escapes) were within the event horizon, so none of them should have been sucked in. Logically, Natasha shouldn't be here. 

This doesn't make any _sense_. 

Tony doesn't know how long she sits there, mind running in circles and repeatedly coming back to the same conclusion. Her ribs, which had only mildly ached during the battle, have begun to throb, and a large, visible bruise has begun to form on her right bicep where one of the Hydra goons blasted her. 

At some point, the doorknob rattles. 

Tony stiffens on the bed, sitting up as much as possible despite the pain it causes her ribs. She glares at the door as it opens, expecting Mystery Asshole again or maybe even Natasha, but instead another familiar face steps through. 

Tony stares at Bruce as he shuffles in, carrying a tray of what looks like medical supplies, and shuts the door with his foot. 

"You've got some real nasty bumps, there," he says after a moment of awkward silence, nodding to her bicep, and probably also indicating the other various scrapes and dings Tony can't see but always has. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Only if you tell me what your other half thought she was pulling earlier," Tony says flatly. Bruce's resulting flinch is satisfying. 

His bedside manner mask falls away quickly, and he gives her an odd look, something between wary and curious. She can see him wavering for a moment before, as usual, curiosity wins out, and he approaches cautiously to set his tools on the small table next to her bed, the only other piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room. He takes a careful seat on the edge of the bed, beyond the reach of her trapped limbs, and frowns at her minutely. 

"I'm afraid you've got me at a disadvantage," he admits, observing her the same way he might something in the lab. Tony snorts. 

Tony raises her eyebrows and looks pointedly at her wrists. "Really?"

Bruce covers his smile with his hand and waits a moment before clarifying, "Well, maybe not in the physical sense. It's, well...you seem to know me, but I don't know you."

Tony just looks at him. 

Tony has fallen through a magical portal into a place where no one seems to know who she is. Ergo, the only logical conclusion is that either the portal wiped her existence from reality, or this is some universe where Tony doesn't exist. 

Tony feels very, very tired. 

"Well, Toto," she mutters wearily before flopping back down on the bed, wishing she could put her head in her hands, "it looks like I'm not in Kansas anymore."

Bruce just looks confused. 

 

Tony benevolently allows Bruce to inspect her and treat her minimal wounds before he leaves with one final, vaguely concerned glance back at her. She just lays there, afterwards, too exhausted by the emotional roller coaster she's had and the reality of the situation she's in to do much more than drift. She occupies herself by going over the schematics for the next Iron Man suit in her head, changing and adding details or tweaking designs to improve or enhance it. She carefully doesn't think about the consequences or implications of all this. 

And Tony absolutely, positively does not cry. 

By the time someone else opens the door, Tony is tired, hungry, dehydrated, and feels like she's been put through the emotional wringer. 

"I'm ready to talk about the suit now," Tony says, because she feels like that's a good way to get out of her current situation. 

She can practically feel Mystery Asshole frown at her, but Tony doesn't bother using any of her strength to lift herself off the bed and posture. Instead, she just watches him glare his way into the room and idly catalogues things--his clipped but purposeful walk, the oil stains on his forearms, the tool callouses on his hands. 

The arc reactor glowing through his shirt. 

Now that she's less emotional, she's noticing a lot of disturbing similarities. 

"Well?" he prompts, raising his eyebrows at her exactly the same way she does when she's impatient. Seeing it on a male face is weird, even weirder than she thought it would be. 

Now that she's thinking rationally, Tony's fairly surprised she missed the arc reactor their first go around--it's pretty obvious, though, then again, she can see how she'd miss it, since earlier, she wasn't really looking. 

She wonders if they drink the same whiskey. 

"Did you get any footage of the portal that dropped me off here?" Tony asks finally with a strange feeling of...not quite resignation; it's a little more positive than that. Acceptance, maybe. That's the best word she can think of. 

"Yeeeees," her keeper says slowly, narrowing his eyes as he draws out the word. He's suspicious of her--it's fine; she would be, too. 

Tony stares back at him, uncowed. "See if you can access the footage from my--from the suit." She bites her tongue; be diplomatic, she thinks, she can be diplomatic with herself--himself-- _fuck_. 

This is almost too much of a mindfuck for even Tony to handle. 

"Fuck me, this is weird," Tony mutters and closes her eyes, wishing she had a stiff drink, or at least the freedom to bring a hand up to her face. She can feel a headache forming behind her eyes. Great. 

"Yeah, Tinkerbell, I would," Probably-Male-Tony grinds out as if it costs him something, "if you hadn't put--ugh." He covers his eyes with his hand; Tony feels deeply envious. "Look, I'm gonna level with you. I couldn't get past the firewalls."

Tony's jaw drops. "Really?" she says gleefully, shuffling around on the bed to get a better look at her glowering counterpart. "You couldn't crack them? You couldn't crack them? God, I am a fucking genius, I am so smart I can even beat--"

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, pixie stick," Tony-not-Tony interrupts loudly, heading towards her bed. He glares at her, and she meets his gaze smugly before he looks at some corner of the room that probably contains a camera and jerks his head irritably. 

Ten-ish minutes later, Tony is free of the bed and being escorted, blindfolded and handcuffed, to somewhere else by Natasha. 

They board an elevator, and Tony recognizes the swish of the doors all too well. 

They're in Stark Tower. 

She can tell it's Stark Tower and not Avengers Tower because the tell-tale awkward elevator music she'd put in after reconstruction to piss off Clint is absent, which--freaks Tony out, some. She tries not to fidget as Natasha and Not-Tony take her down in silence, to what Tony guesses is probably the lab. 

"Hey, watch the eyebrows, I pay good money to have those threaded," Tony complains as they remove her blindfold roughly. 

"Does she ever stop talking?" Clint's voice asks conversationally as her eyes adjust to the light, and she hears someone--probably Steve--shush him. 

Tony goes still. 

Steve. 

This version of Steve is--well. From what Tony can see, he's mostly the same. But there's one huge, glaring difference exposed by the gray t-shirt he's wearing. 

This Steve doesn't have her words. 

His bicep is blank, and it's freaking her out. She eyes him warily, unsure how to react or what to say, when Man-Tony snaps his fingers in front of her face impatiently. 

"Earth to Princess, try and stay focused." She quirks a brow at him pointedly and adjusts her posture as he crosses the room and presses some button. 

The whole team, minus Thor, who is probably in Asgard, watches as a table with her armor resting on it lifts out of the floor. Tony startles. 

"What, did you have the Hulk pry me out of it?" she blurts incredulously, taking in the twisted, pulled-open pieces of the main body. The limbs seem mostly intact, as her emergency release system appears to have done its job, but Tony chafes at the exposed, gaping hole where her arc reactor should be. That's gonna be a pain to fix. 

"Details," Male-Tony says, waving a hand. "Give us access to it."

"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on, Captain Kirk," Tony snarks, stepping forward to the table with her handcuffed hands held in front of her. She pauses. "I don't suppose I'm gonna get these bad boys taken off?"

"Nice try," Natasha says behind her. Tony grumbles, but she gets to work, bending over the table and prying off the helmet, which is harder than usual with the damage to the suit. Once she's got it, she stuffs it over her head and waits patiently as the auxiliary power comes online, slow and sluggish. 

"'Stark Raving Mad'? Really, that's the best you could do?" Tony says, unimpressed, as she starts dumping the audio-visual feed from her suit into Man-Stark's personal files. She titles the folder 'You're a plebe.', because she knows it will piss him off. 

"I'd like to see you do better," he returns, sounding rather offended. 

"Sure," Tony says, and gives it the same title as the Avengers Tower network back home. "Also, the files are finished downloading," she adds, almost as an afterthought. 

There's a pause before Man-Tony makes a choked-off noise. Clint goes over to peer over his shoulder, and immediately starts suppressing laughter, turning around to walk away so that he can bend over the railing while he guffaws. Bruce, always the mature one, leans in and reads the title with a raised eyebrow. 

"'Stark-Spangled LAN with a Plan'?" he says aloud, corner of his mouth curled in a suppressed smile. Steve chokes on air, and Natasha huffs to her left. 

"Ste--my fiancé liked it," Tony sniffs defiantly, heart speeding up at the slip. Natasha shoots her a sharp glance, and Tony stares back blankly as best she can. 

There are so many little things she has to be careful of--at least until they watch the footage from the battle. Hopefully, they'll believe her then. 

Hopefully. 

"Stop messing around and roll the footage, Stark," Steve says drily. It's weird to hear him say her last name like that. Man-Tony rolls his eyes and mutters something, but he complies. All the Avengers fall silent as the recording from her suit begins to roll. 

Tony decided to start with before the battle actually happened, so there's a weird moment where all that's visible are red lights and the emergency siren blaring on the inside of her dark, empty lab. Across the room, Man-Tony's brow is visibly furrowed. 

"What..." he begins, but falls silent as soon as Tony herself comes jogging into the room on-screen, face serious as the lights come up and illuminate her path to the suits. 

" _JARVIS, get the launch pad open and get the comms online ASAP,_ " she orders as she comes in close to the camera, and there's a weird moment where her suit opens up and reassembles around her before the displays flicker online at the edges of the screen and she says, " _Tell Steve to meet me at the--_ "

" _Already there,_ " Steve--her Steve--says over the comms, his voice echoing around them. The other, new Avengers are silent. 

" _Excellent. Hang tight, Captain Tightpants,_ " she says as she clunks a few steps forward and charges out of the open window. 

"What is this?" Other Steve says in slow disbelief as Tony flies up a story and positions herself to catch Her Steve, who has, as per usual, thrown himself from the balcony and into her metal arms in a move that would give anyone else terrible bruises. 

" _Hello, handsome,_ " Tony's disembodied voice says as she peers at Steve's profile while they fly to their destination. Looking into the camera, Steve gives her a fond look. 

" _No flirting on the comms,_ " Clint's voice says immediately, as per usual. 

" _If we can't do it, no one can,_ " Natasha adds casually. There's a crackle that sounds suspiciously like Bruce clearing his throat. 

" _You guys gonna need me for this one?_ " Bruce asks warily. Tony's displays flicker through information. 

" _Probably not,_ " disembodied Tony says, followed by Steve confirming, " _Go ahead and sit this one out, big guy._ "

" _Sounds good to me,_ " Bruce replies. " _Have JARVIS let me know if there's trouble. Natasha, be safe._ "

" _I will,_ " is Nat's simple reply. 

" _You guys are so cute,_ " Tony comments gleefully. 

" _Tony, stay focused,_ " Steve scolds, raising one eyebrow at her when the camera swings towards him. 

"You can probably fast forward to the end of the battle," Tony says quietly in real life, making everyone jump. They all stare at her for a minute, and she stares steadily at the screen where Steve's smiling at her fondly through the cowl, wind forcing his pretty blue eyes to squint as the buildings fly by behind him. "You've seen enough of this part."

Man-Tony looks at the others, then back at her, and skips ahead without saying a word. The battle blurs by until the moment when, behind her, something happens and the portal rips open before she spins toward it. 

" _What the fuck,_ " Clint says again, and Tony feels déjà vu as the whole scene flashes by, word for word, just as she remembers. They watch as her displays flicker; the recording quality isn't the best, with all the interference, but it's good enough. They watch until she gets pulled into the vortex and everything goes black. 

Tony-not-Tony turns off the monitor and looks at her. He doesn't seem to know what to say. 

Tony doesn't blame him. 

"Who are you?" Steve asks finally, breaking the silence. These strange, new Avengers all stare at her. 

Tony smiles blandly. "Antonia 'Tony' Stark," she says simply. "Billionaire, genius, philanthropist. President of Stark Industries, Avengers co-captain, Iron Man."

"Not Iron Woman?" Not-Tony asks immediately, like a compulsion. Tony just shrugs. 

"They tried that for a while; it didn't stick."

There's a strange, almost awkward silence for a moment while they all consider each other. Bruce is the one who finally breaks it. 

"So." He removes his glasses and looks at Tony with that speculative gleam he gets in the lab sometimes. "From what we've seen, it seems safe to say you're from an alternate reality."

"This is some weird, Thor-level shit right here," Clint declares, lounging on his railing. Tony completely agrees. 

"It...wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, considering what we've seen," Steve says slowly, face pinched in thought. Tony's glance slides back to his blank bicep, and her skin crawls before she looks away. 

Natasha looks speculative. Tony eyes her warily as the Russian super-spy rounds the table, trailing her fingers down Tony's armor. 

"I feel like there are some important details you're not telling us," the red-head finally drawls, eyes flicking up to meet hers. Tony feels terribly transparent. 

"Well, you know, that's all kind of personal and I wasn't sure if I should--"

"Oh, cut the crap and spill it," Not-Tony snaps, rolling his eyes. The others all look interested. 

Tony swallows and, compulsively, glances at Steve. He just raises an eyebrow. 

"Well?" he prompts. Tony flinches. 

"I--well--" Tony's gaze skitters back to his blank arm again before she blurts, "Steve and I are sort of--soulmates."

Clint, in the back, lets out a compulsive snort, and even Not-Tony smirks. 

"Really? Soulmates?" Man-Tony says, voice and expression condescending. "That's what you're going with?"

"What do you mean, 'going with'; I've don't have his words on my boob for nothing," Tony says defensively, feeling offended. 

"You have his what on your where?" Man-Tony replies as Steve chokes on his own saliva in the background and begins coughing violently. 

Ten minutes later, Tony has finished explaining in slow, careful detail the basics of the soulmate system. 

"But how do the words end up on your body?" Bruce asks again with confusion. 

"For the last time, Bruce, we just don't know," Tony says, exasperated. "Science hasn't been able to figure it out yet. Thor claims that it has to do with some decision his mom made eons ago or whatever, but I'm still not sure if he's full of shit." 

This-Steve seems to still be absorbing all of this. "And...you and I...?" he says, looking at her with a furrowed brow and that pinched-mouth thing he gets when he's upset. 

"Well--kind of, I guess," Tony says helplessly, glancing at her counterpart, "but in all honesty--"

"We don't know how much me being female changes things," Man-Tony finishes, staring at her. "Not to mention what the whole soulmate thing could do."

"Exactly." Tony glances between them, feeling something uncomfortable bubble in her stomach. "Look, all I can tell you is what I know, in my universe."

"Does that mean Bruce and I are paired in your dimension?" Natasha asks, a rather unholy kind of speculation in her eyes as she looks at Tony. Bruce shifts uncomfortably. 

"Look, Nat, I don't know if that's--"

"Yeah; you made some comment about avoiding stress, and Bruce spent almost the entirety of his adult life living in places like Mumbai and Rio as a result," Tony says drily. Bruce looks rather indignant; Natasha looks smug. 

"What about me?" Clint asks from his perch on the rail, face full of curiosity. 

"Your wife is a lovely person and you two have far too many disgusting children," Tony says flatly. "I will never take refuge at your house again."

Clint looks inordinately pleased. 

"Okay, teenage romance cliches and Barton's spawn aside," Man-Tony says finally, changing the subject, "I think there's a very important question to answer here." He gives Tony an unusually serious look. Tony, who knows exactly what he's thinking, returns it for a moment and then sighs. 

"Yeah. How am I gonna get home," she finishes, carefully closing her eyes. She's been avoiding thinking about that for a reason. 

"Well, what I don't get," Bruce begins thoughtfully, "is why Steve-- _your_ Steve, that is," he clarifies, glancing at the other Steve, "hasn't come through."

"The portal probably just dumps people wherever," Tony says sullenly, looking away. "He probably ended up in zombie Valhalla or something, hell if I know."

"I suppose that's possible," Bruce concedes reluctantly, looking at his glasses and frowning, "but considering our other encounters with phenomena of this nature, doesn't it seem more likely that it's--?"

The building shudders with a muffled boom, plaster falling from the ceiling. They all look up. 

"...Predictable," Bruce finishes drily, his timing impeccable as always. 

"Didn't you say I landed on the balcony?" Tony contributes conversationally. 

"The portal has opened again, sir," JARVIS offers helpfully. "I cannot say for certain, but it does seem to have deposited a man the same size and build as Captain Rogers."

"Oh thank god," Tony blurts. 

 

They all head up to the next level (even Tony, who is still in handcuffs) to investigate, regardless. Sure enough, maybe ten feet from the suspiciously Tony-shaped hole in Man-Stark's balcony (which Tony can only assume is from her own arrival), a second cloud of dust is settling. 

Tony rips free from Natasha's grip and sprints over to the wreckage, ignoring Not-Steve's bark of warning. Steve, Steve, Steve, _Steve_. 

"Hey, we don't know if that's structurally sound--!" Not-Tony calls after her, but Tony doesn't give two shits. She's already halfway across the room and stumbling straight into the cloud of concrete dust, heart pounding even as she coughs and squints through the unclean air. 

"Steve?" she calls with a cough, picking her way over the debris outside. "Steve, are you okay?"

No answer, but as the dust clears and Tony gets further in she spots a human-shaped lump in the middle of the wreckage. 

"STEVE!" Tony vaults over a piece of glass and scrambles towards him, cursing her handcuffed hands for slowing her down. 

She finally gets close enough she can drop awkwardly to her knees, shuffling closer and ignoring the broken glass that cuts into her jeans as she whispers, "Steve, Steve, baby, are you okay, are you conscious? God, please _say_ something, don't make me give you handcuffed CPR, _Steve--_ "

Suddenly, Steve begins to cough, disturbing the dust that's settled on him, and gives a full-bodied wheeze before he tenses and rolls towards Tony, blinking and squinting at her face. 

"Tony...?" he says hoarsely, but it's him. It's him. 

"Steve," Tony says, embarrassed by the way her voice cracks in the middle, but then Steve smiles wearily up at her and Tony can't hold it anymore. She folds over Steve's dusty, dirt-covered chest with a sob and lets herself go, crying heavily into his battle-worn uniform in the middle of the ruined balcony as he slowly comes to. She feels overwhelmed by profound, guilty relief, body shuddering with sobs that only worsen when she feels him place his gloved hand gently on her hair, reassuring her even though he's just been thrown fifty feet into glass and concrete. 

The dust has fully cleared by the time Tony calms, sobs quieting to sniffles as she gathers herself against him, letting the rough but soothing fabric of his uniform and his familiar hand stroking her hair ground her. She gives one last hearty sniff and straightens, blinking blearily at him. 

Steve, lucid but clearly worse for the wear, has managed to sit up some and pulled the cowl down around his neck; he smiles at her gently. 

"Hi," he says quietly. 

"Hi," Tony returns, then sniffs again. "You look like shit," she says. Because it's true: he looks like he's been chewed up and spit out again by fifty Hydra agents, a magical portal, and Not-Tony's balcony, because he has. 

Steve gives a startled laugh and touches his ribs with a wince, then returns, "So do you."

"I got torn out of my suit by the Hulk," Tony defends, both hands clenched tight over his despite the lightness of her words. "What's your excuse?"

Steve doesn't respond. Instead, he's frowning at their joined hands in his lap, which--oh. Right. 

"Why are you in handcuffs?" Steve asks with suspicious confusion, concern growing on his face. Tony sighs. 

"I--it's been a long day," she admits wearily, turning to look over her shoulder at the Notvengers, who are crowding uncertainly at the entrance to the balcony. Steve frowns and turns to follow her sightline, and Tony can see the moment when he sees himself because his eyes practically pop out of his head. 

"Tony," Steve says warily, an unspoken question in his voice. 

"Apparently," Tony begins, "that sparkly portal? Leads to another dimension. One where soulmates aren't a thing."

Steve turns to look at her sharply. "What, you mean--they don't _exist_ here?"

"Nope," Tony confirms. "Made for an interesting explanation of how words work." Tony pauses. "Also, in this world, I have a penis."

Steve chokes on his own saliva, which leads to an extended coughing or laughter fit, Tony can't tell which. She pats his back stoically, and gestures to the others that it's okay to approach. 

"Did you just say 'penis,' a second ago?" Not-Tony asks suspiciously as he picks his way over. Tony just raises a brow and continues rubbing Steve's back. 

"Steve's gonna need some medical attention," she tells a wary Bruce, because now that she's moved past her initial crushing relief Tony's noticing all these cuts, scrapes, and wounds, which, though Steve heals quickly, should still be looked at. 

"Of course," Bruce says simply with a glance at Natasha, who's just. Watching them, speculatively. Tony stares steadily back until, finally, Nat turns away. _Good,_ Tony thinks a little viciously. 

"Let's get you inside, uh, Cap," Not-Tony says finally, having made it all the way over to them. 

He still looks deeply unsettled by the whole situation as he and Clint lever Steve carefully to his feet, supervised by Bruce. Tony follows as they walk him into the Tower, waving as Steve disappears into the elevator before turning to Not-Steve, who's still lingering by the door. 

"Okay," Tony says finally, raising an eyebrow at him. "Spit it out."

He looks startled, for a second, but he covers it up quickly. "It's nothing," he mutters, eyes still stuck on the closed elevator doors. And, see, he might not be Tony's Steve, but he's still _Steve,_ which means Tony knows exactly what that pinched, cloudy-eyed look means, guarded as both Steves seem to think it is. 

"If it's about Bucky," Tony begins cautiously, and sure enough, this Steve can't hide his flinch, "he's fine. He has a soulmate, too, just like anyone else."

Steve's looking at her now, a little angrier, and blurts out as if he can't help it, "And that's it?"

"No, that's not it," Tony admits, "but, I mean." Tony pauses and thinks, for a moment. Gathers her words. 

"I don't know how it went, here," she begins, "you know--the whole 'SHIELD is Hydra' thing," she pauses to look at Steve's reaction, but his face is carefully blank now, so she continues, "but for us, well. It was a bit of a shitshow." Which is an understatement. Tony looks down. 

"Steve found Bucky in the middle of trying to assassinate Fury--which, you know, isn't a great reunion by anyone's standards, but, anyway--so he couldn't really do anything about it. At least, not until I'd fucked over all the death helicarriers I was helping SHIELD build." Tony can feel her face twist just thinking about it. "Long story short, Nat, Steve and I got blamed for Nick's death, had to go underground. We had to lay low at Clint's place, and, well. It was pretty fucked up. We spent a lot of time rooting out all the shit Hydra had left, exposing all the operatives who'd managed to lay low the first time around. SHIELD was almost dissolved." 

Tony makes the mistake of pausing to look at Steve's face, then, and she stops. 

"It _did_ get dissolved here, didn't it," Tony says faintly. 

"Yes," Natasha confirms quietly behind her, startling a curse out of Tony, because _damn,_ "it did."

Tony looks between this Natasha and this Steve, both pale and solemn, and sighs heavily. 

"So. I'm guessing you guys _didn't_ carefully extract Bucky and give him a safe, healthy environment in which to figure himself out and make his own choices?" Tony asks heavily. Annoyingly enough, she feels like she already knows the answer just from the vague guilt on Steve's face. "Great. Well, that's what _we_ did. Steve and I set him up in a Brooklyn apartment with just enough surveillance to make sure Hydra didn't get him again, got him weekly appointments with one of the best Vet counsellors in the country, and let him be. We had a couple kidnapping attempts, but nothing Steve and I couldn't handle. Also," Tony adds, almost as an afterthought, "I did a lot of work improving his arm, polishing it up, removing all the trackers and other bullshit Hydra'd put in there. Works like a dream, now, I gotta say," Tony brags proudly, tossing her hair and very deliberately ignoring the cloud of dust that shakes off of it. 

"And you said he found his soulmate?" Not Steve, who's looking at her with slightly softer eyes now, asks quietly. Tony's stomach does an uncomfortable flip, and she clears her throat. 

"Yes," she confirms once again. "Logan's a jackass, but he and The American Sniper get along pretty well, between all the bickering. He's a mutant, too, so they've both got the longevity thing going for them." Tony waves a hand vaguely. "The universe finds a way, you know; all that romantic, existentialist junk. They have a cat now, apparently; it's all very domestic."

The elevator doors open behind them before Tony can say anything else or, god forbid, Not-Steve can ask anymore uncomfortably personal questions about Bucky or Logan, and Clint pokes his head out. 

"Hey, Rosie," the purple wonder calls, "he's asking for you."

"Yeah, Katniss, I'm coming," Tony calls back, then turns and smiles at Steve and Natasha. "And that's my cue to leave."

Natasha just nods. Steve looks conflicted for a moment, but finally he reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder. 

"Thank you," he says, very seriously and earnestly, his big hand warm on her skin. Tony swallows and, despite the heat that's immediately pooling low in her abdomen, glances at his arm. His bicep is still very bare. 

Tony's poor heart can only take so much. She mumbles something in reply and flees, clambering hastily into the elevator with Clint. 

The doors close, and her friend raises an eyebrow. "So," he says, because Barton is the king of segues, "you wanna talk about it?"

"I am not discussing my sexual urges with you, Barton," Tony says flatly. Then, "In this universe," she amends. Clint raises his hands placatingly. 

"Okay, okay," he acquiesces, letting them fall without further comment. 

They ride the rest of the way in silence. 

The elevator doors open, and Tony feels a chill go down her spine as she realizes that this is the floor where she was being held, earlier. She passes each door with some trepidation, until Clint opens a door on their left and Tony relaxes when she realizes it's just a normal-looking hospital room. 

Steve looks over as they enter the room and smiles up at her tiredly from the clean white bed. "Hey," he says, then glances at her cuffed wrists and immediately frowns. 

"Can we get those taken off, please?" he asks Man-Tony, an edge of command in his voice. 

"Sure, I guess," Man-Tony allows strangely reluctantly, glancing over at her. Tony (who has no time nor fucks to give to whatever existential crisis is surely going on in his head) just watches him blithely as he comes over and fiddles with the cuffs before they come off her with a click, leaving her to rub the red band around her wrists. 

"Thanks," Tony says, drier than the Sahara. 

"You're welcome," Man-Tony returns, because apparently it's a universal constant that she's an ass. 

Tony plops herself in the chair beside Steve's bed, then takes his hand in both of hers and presses it to her cheek, closing her eyes. 

Bruce murmurs something to Man-Tony, and a moment later, Tony hears the two of them plus Clint leave. The door shuts quietly behind them. 

After a moment, Tony heaves a sigh and opens her eyes. 

Steve's looking at her in that soft sort of way he does, thumb running over her cheek gently. Cheekbone, hairline, and back, over and over again. The familiar rhythm calms her, and suddenly, Tony feels exhausted. 

"I'm so glad you're here," she mumbles, eyes fluttering shut. She hears Steve shift on the bed, feels him sit up and draw the blankets back. 

"Me, too," he agrees, gently nudging her forward with the hand on her head, the other moving to touch her arm. "Come here."

Tony goes, climbing up into the bed with him in a way that is probably not good for their injuries, but since when does Tony give a shit? She wiggles underneath the blankets and sighs when Steve pulls them up and over, covering them both in the soft kind of cotton she would have chosen. 

She snuggles up to Steve, almost on top of him, and when he shifts restlessly she patiently allows him to adjust their positions until she's actually laying on top of him, head tucked in the warm crook of his neck. 

"Reactor's not poking you, is it?" Tony mumbles into Steve's collarbone, slipping one arm up around his neck so she can feel his soft, clean hair against her skin. Steve chuffs and shifts so that his cheek is pressing against the top of her head, probably getting dust all in his face. 

"No, it's fine," he says, one hand idly rubbing her back through her tank, which has really seen better days, at this point. He pauses a moment, then adds, "All I can feel is your breasts."

Tony snorfles against his skin, not very ladylike or dignified but neither of them seem to care; Steve's chuckling too, an aura of smugness radiating from him. 

"Yeah, real proud of that one, aren't you?" Tony mutters fondly, scratching the hair at the back of his head. Steve arches into the touch like a cat and rumbles, "Got you to laugh, didn't it?"

Tony just smiles at him, fond and sleepy. "Yes, it did. Now go to sleep."

"Yes, Ma," Steve says sarcastically, but immediately confirms Tony's suspicions when his jaw then cracks on a yawn. Tony lowers her head and snuggles into him. 

"JARVIS, turn off the lights," Tony mumbles as she snuggles into Steve's warm skin. 

When JARVIS replies, "Yes, Miss," Tony's drowsy brain can almost forget they're in a completely different dimension. 

Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Tony still has his arc reactor because reasons; idk, just ignore like the last 5 bullshit minutes of Iron Man 3 or something. Tbc, since this unholy creation seems determined to exist. Yay-we-didn't-die relieved sex accompanied by a rating change is incoming next chapter, yaaaaaaay!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too tired to do formatting (AKA add italics) right now; it's midnight and I have class tomorrow. Second half is good, but I'll go back and format the first half properly during the day tomorrow. 
> 
> Meantime, enjoy! 
> 
> (Chapter also more than slightly influenced by my realization that, canon holding true, shit will be hitting the fan and canon Steve and Tony will be Civil War-ing the living shit out of each other like immediately after this fic ends, so that's fucked up and very upsetting and now has to be worked in.)

Tony's very slow, very reluctant return to consciousness is eased by Steve's soft, skin-warmed t-shirt under her cheek. 

Tony sighs and shifts, inhales deeply and gives herself a moment to enjoy his warm, sleepy Steve smell (which is creepy as hell, she's fully aware, but y'know what, they're engaged, it's fine). He somehow manages to still smell good, despite their ordeal, but underneath his natural, familiar scent Tony gets smoke and metal and concrete, a not unfamiliar mix: the smell of a recent battle. 

Still drowsy, Tony hums and stretches languidly against Steve's body; he feels like a warm, well-muscled mattress. She takes the opportunity to drop a leg in between his when he stirs underneath her, tangling them further. Lifting her head is an effort, but she does it anyway and cracks her eyes open to stare at him blearily. 

"Good morning," Steve murmurs. His expression is soft but his eyes are alert. He's obviously been up a while. Tony blinks up at him slowly while she processes that, then scowls. 

"You're such a disgusting morning person," she mutters while she levers herself up in a futile attempt to speed the wake-up process; her side twinges, and she grits her teeth and willfully ignores it it. Steve, obligingly, scoots up just enough that Tony can sit in his lap, her legs splayed out on either side of his trim hips. His thumbs stroke the jut of her hipbones while she rubs her eyes with her fists, bed headed and grumpy, and waits for her brain to come fully online. 

Steve chuffs at her a little, like he does every morning. Tony drops her fists onto his washboard abs and glares dully at his fond smile. 

"Don't laugh at me. That was a completely legitimate insult." Tony scowls as Steve leans up to kiss her, which she grudgingly allows. 

"You say that every morning," Steve points out, amused. His eyes are doing that stupid little cute twinkle thing, which only makes Tony feel more irritated. 

"Because it's always _true,_ " she argues, but then Steve's big warm hand cups the back of her neck, and, as usual, Tony sighs and gives up fondly. She allows him to pull her in for a long, lingering kiss, his lips soft and warm as his hand scratches through her short-cropped hair. 

"Mmm, _morning,_ " she murmurs happily against Steve's lips before grinding down idly. A smirk curls across her face when his answering hum becomes a moan, his hand on her head clenching tighter. His other hand slides up from her hip and slips under her shirt, and Tony feels arousal well up in her like a spring. _Good morning,_ indeed. They shift and curl into each other, Steve rising from the bed while Tony draws herself against him, and their next kiss _definitely_ has a dirtier edge. 

Tony allows her mind to wander as Steve sucks on her tongue. It's baffling, really, how easy it is to lose herself in the foreplay--at least, when it comes to Steve. Tony used to be all about the quick and dirty, but sometimes she thinks she could sit and just kiss Steve for hours, lost in the feel of his body against hers, all his wet little pants and groans against her mouth as his body scrapes against hers. He's gotten way more aggressive about taking control of the bed since the first time they met (which is hot as fuck and Tony is five hundred percent on board, yes please), which was also new, since Tony's pretty used to be Head Bitch In Charge. 

But Steve--Steve _challenges_ her, in the bed and out of it. Sometimes, sex with him feels like a battle of wills; it's heady and intoxicating. 

When Tony returns to the now, Steve allows her to take the lead, lets her coax his lips open and bear his delicious mouth to hers, so sweet and responsive, but when she flicks her tongue sensually against his it's like flipping a switch. 

Tony makes a noise of surprise when Steve flips them unexpectedly; for a second after she hits the bed, she just lays there, breathless and reeling from the change in perspective. 

But Steve doesn't give her any time to think: he's already back on her, body pressing hot against her as he reinitiates the kiss. Tony moans and melts, her body arching up to press against his as her mouth and legs both fall open to welcome him. Steve slides a hand up under her shirt and thumbs her nipple; Tony feels him smile against her lips when she twitches and squeaks, his touch light and teasing as he traces her breast. 

"You like that?" he murmurs against her mouth before he draws back. 

"Ah, Steve, you shit, you _know_ I do--HAH!"

Before she even registers the change he's got her shirt around her armpits and his other hand down her pants, and Tony swears and bucks as he mouths at her nipple while his other hand ghosts over her clit, fingers dipping right past it to slip into her wet, wet folds. _Jesus,_ he's sneaky. 

"Agh, _Steve;_ Jesus fucking Christ--"

"Tony," Steve chides playfully, raising a brow at her before dipping his head back down to tongue right at where his words on her breast say 'shut up'. 

"Oh, that's funny, oh, you're so fucking funny I-- _god,_ Steve; just get your dick in me, come on--"

Tony can practically hear his eyebrows shoot up. "Already?" he says, puzzled. 

They usually like a little more foreplay than this, but honestly, now that Tony's awake and processing she's feeling a little overwhelmed; she's so shaken up from this entire situation and she thought she had lost Steve or would never get to see him and--

"I want to feel you," she blurts honestly, feels a twinge of old panic at the naked desperation in her voice but she swallows and forces herself to continue: " _Please,_ Steve."

There's a moment of silence where all Tony can hear is her own ragged breathing, but then Steve's hands pull away and she scrambles up onto her elbows just in time to see him push his sweatpants down to his hips, the thin cotton fabric making it easy. 

"They didn't give you underwear?" Tony wonders mindlessly as Steve nudges her gently back down to the mattress and tugs off her pants, tossing them gently to the side. 

"I didn't ask," Steve replies, and Tony's about to huff out a laugh but then Steve folds back over her and pushes in. 

Tony groans, and she feels more than hears Steve do the same as he slides slowly in, lingering so they can both enjoy that first delicious push. Her vision blurs, and Tony's eyes flutter closed as Steve begins to move, slow and steady and _so_ good within her, stretching and filling all the empty, aching places inside her that were just waiting to be filled. She feels endlessly relaxed underneath him, hazy and floating in a sense of good and right. 

That strange sense of tranquility pops like a bubble when she feels Steve's hands slide under her knees and push, folding her up and in, the angle permitting him to push deeper. Tony groans and encourages him with her body as well as her words, reaching out to help him draw her thighs up higher as she babbles mindless agreement and praise. Her knees pretty much end up in her armpits, but Tony's plenty flexible and with every jolting thrust Steve slams against her g-spot. Tony claws at Steve's hands and thrashes, all kinds of little grunts and moans spilling from her throat while Steve fucks her faster and harder--the benefits of sleeping with a super soldier. 

"Tony," Steve says suddenly. Tony's eyes jerk open and a giant, wordless _?_ pops to the surface, even through the white haze of pleasure that clouds her thoughts. 

"Look at me," Steve urges as his eyes bore into hers. Tony resists her body's instincts and does, panting and blinking wildly and feeling hopelessly vulnerable as Steve's blue, blue baby blues stare into her. She can practically feel her heart welling up beneath his gaze. 

She feels lightheaded with the feeling as Steve moves inside her, over and with her and around her, _everywhere,_ his breath on her hot like a brand, his skin sliding slick against hers. He hovers above her like a vision, wet mouth open and panting, eyes hooded (his lashes are so long), staring at her through his halo of sex-tousled hair with an expression so intense, it _pins_ her. 

Tony is drowning in him, in the sound of his groans, the shift of his weight reverberating through the mattress; just the feeling of his thighs moving against her as he thrusts is almost enough to overwhelm her. Pleasure flows through her in waves and it's too much, _too much,_ and she almost wants to tell Steve to stop but she can't, every cell in her body wound up tight enough to burst, until suddenly just when she thinks she might pass out she crests the peak and the wire snaps. 

Tony had trouble getting to this point, at first--she couldn't hold out. The second, fourth, fifth times they'd fucked she'd had to look away, shy and uneasy under the new intensity of emotion she saw and unsettled by how much she felt in return. Now, she still feels overwhelmed, but in a strange and sudden epiphany she realized at some point that all she ever needed to do was accept the feeling. 

The wave crests and it all washes over her, waves of emotion and pleasure pushing her higher and higher in her spiral towards her climax as Tony just lays there breathlessly and takes him-- _all_ of him. 

This is what they are. 

Tony feels weak with the knowledge, shattered by the powerful swell of emotion she feels when she looks at him--at Steve--her _soulmate._

Her climax finally hits her. She shudders and sobs, eyes clenching shut despite herself as she whites in and out of reality, gasping and crying out as she shakes with pleasure. 

There are tears dripping down her temples when she comes to, and she reaches up to touch them with an unsteady hand, physically and emotionally shaky. Steve has stopped and is gazing down at her with concern, his eyes searching her face worriedly. 

"Are you okay?" he asks urgently, one hand wrapped around the side of her neck (probably to feel her pulse, the worrywart). Tony nuzzles into it, letting him ground her, and takes a shaky breath. 

"Yeah," she croaks, taking a moment to enjoy his warmth against her bare skin. When she's done, she blinks through her heavy, wet eyelashes and looks at him again. Her lip wobbles, and it takes an effort not to cry. 

He's so, so beautiful. 

Instinctively, Tony reaches up to touch Steve with unsteady hands. He leans into her touch, despite the furrow alarm has put in his brow, and she inhales raggedly around the frightening feeling in her chest. 

"You're the love of my life, Steve," Tony finally confesses shakily. "I love you so much it scares me, sometimes."

Steve--Steve shudders and leans into her palm, presses his cheek against her hand with his eyes pinched closed. When he opens them, they're as wet as hers. 

"It's the same for me," he admits hoarsely. 

With that in the air, they fold back into each other desperately. Tony clings to Steve tightly as he thrusts back into her; her nails will probably leave marks on his back like crescents, but she can't bring herself to care. Considering the way he's wrapped so tightly around her when he's normally so gentle, so careful of his strength, she knows he probably won't care, either. 

Tony feels raw and overstimulated by the time Steve comes; he clutches her to him like a lifeline as he shudders and jerks, hands digging into her hips hard enough to leave bruises. They don't part immediately afterwards; instead, they both relax slowly into a boneless, sweaty heap, after he pulls out, tangled in each other on the bed. Tony sort of can't breath super well because Steve's lying completely on top of her, but hey: sacrifices have to be made. 

As usual, though, Steve seems to telepathically sense her discomfort. He shifts down until his head is pillowed just beneath her breasts and wraps his arms underneath her lower back--and, almost as an afterthought, pulls his pants back up. Tony, still pants-less, settles back and pets Steve's hair contentedly; she smiles when he sighs heavily against her stomach, shifting to rub his cheek along her torso like a purring cat. 

"Your calves are halfway off the bed," Tony points out, because they are. It looks ridiculous. Steve chuffs against her skin carelessly and swings his offending limbs up, bending his legs at the knees to fit everything onto Man-Tony's admittedly comfortable mattress. 

"Better?" Steve asks, tilting his head to nose at the underside of her left breast. Right where her words are. 

Tony smiles fondly. "Better."

"Good," he rumbles. A few minutes later, his breathing evens out in a familiar way, and seconds later he's sound asleep. Tony gets comfortable (by which she means she pulls her tank top back out of her armpits) and draws up her plans for the Mark XLI in her head, then settles in to wait. 

 

Tony, as it turns out, doesn't have to wait that long: she's jolted out of her reverie half an hour later by the sudden click of the door opening. She glances down quickly to confirm that yes, she is, in fact, decent, but it doesn't exactly matter because by that point Man-Tony is already halfway inside the room. 

"Would it kill you to knock?" Tony greets her counterpart, one brow raised. Man-Tony goes through a range of expressions, starting with shock and finally settling on something that resembles mild nausea, which Tony knows from experience has a far more complicated, unseen emotional sub-layer. Steve wakes with a grunt and tries to sit up, but Tony gently shoves him back down. 

"Not that I care, but I figure you'll wanna know before you move that your broad shoulders are the only thing standing between our gracious host's eyes and my vagina," Tony informs Steve casually. He stiffens in a completely non-enjoyable way against her thighs, and yanks the sheet up the bed so hard Tony hears threads rip. 

"Alright, whoa; calm down, Cap," Man-Tony says, glancing between them with a look of--horror? Interest? It's honestly hard to tell-- "Just wanted to tell you that Thor, uh, just arrived from Asgard. He's waiting upstairs."

"And JARVIS couldn't take care of that for you?" Steve asks in the tone that means it's not a question. He's sitting rigidly on the edge of the bed with his Angry Captain face on. 

Man-Tony shifts uncomfortably, and Tony resists the urge to roll her eyes. 

"Steve," Tony begins, drawing their attention. She keeps her eyes trained on Man-Tony as she continues, "JARVIS probably told Anthony, here, that you were asleep, and furthermore, that we weren't fit for company. So, of course, he decided to come down and see for himself," Tony explains with a shrug, then begins examining her nails with a quiet sort of smugness while Other Tony shifts uncomfortably in her peripheral vision. No doubt Steve is still glaring a hole in him. 

"Look, clearly this was a bad time, so--I'll let you guys, uh, emerge at your own speed," Anthony says finally, glancing at each of them. Tony smiles and waggles her fingers at him mockingly, and he scowls at her in response before finally leaving the room. 

"I don't like him," Steve informs her a few seconds later, frowning minutely at the closed door. 

"Yes, I imagine that's why you're not together, here," Tony confirms, stretching underneath the sheet like a cat. "Seems like all that testosterone has enhanced my already sparkling personality."

Steve (like he usually does when Tony employs self-deprecating humor) gives her a stern look, but it's ruined by the way the corner of his mouth twitches. Tony smiles smugly at him and, inwardly, feels proud of herself for breaking his foul mood. 

"Come, darling dearest; let's make ourselves fit for public consumption," Tony declares, flinging the sheet off and hopping out of bed. Steve snorts and slaps the billowing fabric away with a shake of his head, but he still helps Tony get back into her pants and underwear without straining her ribs. 

"I can do it myself," Tony complains when he bats her hands away from the zipper. Steve zips her up without comment, then kisses the top of her head. 

"Taking care of you makes me feel better," he says simply. Tony heaves an exaggerated sigh and allows him to tuck her into a hug. It's not like she can't say no, when he puts it that way. 

"The public thinks you're all apple pie honesty, but secretly you're as manipulative as me," Tony complains as they make their way to the elevator. "I ought to expose you for the fraud you are. 'Captain America--Secret Liar.' I bet the _Post_ would go for it."

"Heaven forbid," Steve drawls blandly. Tony tries to sigh, as they pause outside the elevator doors, but since she doesn't fully open her mouth it comes out as more of a snuffle. 

"Whatever," she finally says with a wave of her hand. "Let's go get this over with. And no, before you ask, I'm not going to bother cleaning up; I'm pretty sure Barton's sex-Bloodhound abilities hold constant in any universe."

"That seems fair," Steve agrees dryly. 

 

Tony and Steve's entrance is greeted by some fairly awkward silence. Tony, unintimidated and fully aware of her own sex-tousled state, gives the assemblage a once-over. 

It's almost like everyone's time away from each other had allowed everyone to half-convince themselves, subconsciously, that this had all been some crazy dream or another. Steve's other self seems doubly as weirded out to be meeting himself, now that Tony's Steve is both recovered and in his right mind. 

"By the Nine," comes Thor's wondering voice, "it is exactly as you said."

"What, did you think I was lying?" says Man-Tony, clearly offended, as Tony jerks to face the God of Thunder himself. 

"Thor, buddy," Tony sighs in relief, sagging back against Steve, "I have never been happier to see you and Schrödinger's hammer."

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," Steve adds for them both. 

"Of course," their friend says graciously. His eyes glimmer with their usual curiosity, but... 

Tony blinks, then frowns curiously at this Thor. 

Something about him is...off. Something imprecise, something she can't pin at first glance. This Thor seems older, somehow, than the Thor Tony knows so well; he seems...tired. Less free. The passion and pride Tony's used to is still there, of course, but if Tony were to put a word to it, all of Thor's _Thorness_ just seems...dimmer. 

Tony's stomach turns. It's an uncomfortable reminder that this universe's inhabitants are different from the people she knows. Even Thor, usually so lively, and who is so far definitely the closest match to his counterpart of any of the other Avengers (besides maybe Clint), has a weariness to him, a somber quality that the Thor Tony knows doesn't possess. And Thor--her Thor--has _definitely_ been through some shit. 

A glance over her shoulder at Steve confirms he's picked up on it, too. Wordlessly, though, he indicates with his eyes for her to turn back around. _Not a good time._ Tony, without reacting, faces forward again and maintains a casual expression despite the growing pit in her stomach, and wonders what the hell has happened here. 

Because Tony, herself, has been through some shit--some serious, _serious_ shit. Her life--Steve's life, Thor's life, Natasha's life--has not been easy, by any means. 

Staring at these sober, pallid counterparts of theirs, she cannot even begin to _fathom_ what kind of misery they must have been through. Some real, serious shit must have gone down, to fuck everyone up so badly. Because Tony? Tony's literally had her heart ripped out. 

"So," Man-Tony cuts in, snipping that ominous trail of thought before it can really begin, "what's the deal, big guy?"

"Yeah; any ideas you have on what could do something like this and how to reverse it would be great," Tony adds, jumping in and fully ignoring Man-Tony's annoyed glance. 

Thor looks pensive. "I have thought much on this, but I cannot say for certain," he admits. He quiets, then, and something sad blooms in his face. _Grief,_ Tony realizes like a sucker punch to the gut. It's _grief._ Thor adds a little more quietly, "My mother might have known."

Understanding pours down Tony's spine like ice-water at those five simple words, combined with the quiet sorrow in Thor's face. Steve's hand on her shoulder squeezes. Tony swallows, then reaches up and covers it with her own. 

The team, all of them, wordlessly give the memory a respectful silent moment. 

"What about Odin?" Clint offers as all eyes swing towards him. His normally affable expression is perfectly neutral--for many reasons--maybe even more than just those Tony knows of, and isn't that just a trip? 

"...Yes, my father may indeed know," Thor admits, after a brief moment of consideration. He even seems somewhat hopeful about it, his expression clearly more optimistic, which lightens the mood of the room considerably and relieves Clint of most scrutiny. "But," Thor then adds, because of course there's a 'but', "I must return to Asgard, in order to speak with him."

"Then go," Steve says firmly, drawing any remaining attention off of Clint. "Do what you have to to get this figured out."

Thor smiles and acquiesces with a nod. "Very well. I will return as soon as I know more." Then, cape swirling majestically as per usual, he stomps over to the torn up balcony and, with great dignity and grace, throws himself out the window. 

"Well, that was...productive," Bruce contributes dryly. "Now what?"

Now, Tony needs to talk to Steve alone. "Is there somewhere we can chat that isn't monitored?" she interjects, directly to Man-Tony. 

Eyebrows are raised, as per damn usual, but anyone who expected Tony Stark to be anything less than Head Bitch in Charge was deluding themselves. 

She was a little shaken up by all this interdimensional travel business, when she first arrived, but now that she's aware enough to figure out the direction they need to be going in, she's gonna help make it happen, thanks. 

Man-Steve looks thrown off (and aroused, but then Steve's always had a thing for fiery, independent brunette trailblazers), somewhat reducing Tony's opinion of him. Man-Tony, however, is surprisingly unphased. "Uh, well, nowhere," he admits, "but the roof only has cameras."

Of course. "Yeah, I don't know why I expected anything different. Fancy a stroll up to the roof, darling?" 

"I'll be right behind you," Steve confirms, gently steering her towards the elevators. He's using that tone that brooks no argument. 

"I don't like being directed places," Tony informs Steve for the hundredth time, and he chuffs, but he also used the no-argument tone, so contrary to her mouth, Tony plays nice and goes. 

She pauses a moment before boarding the elevator and glances at him once, just to confirm everything's okay. His posture indicates he's staying because he still has Things To Say, which is fine by Tony. When Steve has things to say, he won't be silenced--SHIELD sure proved that. 

He gives her a tiny nod, so Tony, mollified, shrugs and climbs aboard. "JARVIS, take me up."

 

Tony waits patiently up on the roof for Steve to finish talking. She plants herself on the ledge, legs dangling off into oblivion, and entertains herself for the first few minutes by looking for all the differences in the New York skyline. 

After not too long, though, her thoughts start to drift. 

Steve arrives what feels like a few moments later, snapping Tony out of a partial design on a new, slimmer gauntlet. He comes over to join her on the ledge, stooping and folding up his long limbs into a sitting position in a move that Tony would perform half as gracefully with half the leg. 

She waits another moment, until the elevator door has closed behind him, before she speaks. 

"Something's off about this place," she says over the wind. Both of them are turned away from any of JARVIS' cameras, which is why Tony picked this particular ledge in the first place. 

Steve squints into the sunlight for a moment, wind ruffling his hair, then says, "Yeah, I get that feeling, too. I don't know, Tony." Steve sighs heavily and looks at her. "I think not having words to find your soulmate really made things worse here."

"I think you're right," Tony agrees, looking down at the streets below. 

All those people, just fumbling around in the dark, with no idea who they might meet when or if anybody is really right for them. So many uncertainties, so many what-ifs. It would drive her nuts, the thought of it. 

Their soulmates could walk right past them, here, and they'd never even know. 

A particularly cold gust of wind buffets the roof, and Tony shivers. Steve reaches out with one big arm and tugs her closer, folding her in against his side. Tony snuggles up to him and sighs, love and contentment blooming warm within her. 

Tony honestly doesn't know how she would feel if she didn't have this constant sense of rightness in her life. 

"I would be so unhappy," Tony realizes as Steve holds her close. 

"What?" Steve says over the wind, ducking his head closer with a quizzical brow. 

"Steve, they must be _so unhappy,_ " Tony repeats, the thought of it like an ache now that she's had the realization. "I mean, he--He-Me, I mean, my male double, my man-self--he's probably with Pepper, if I were to guess, but then what about _you?_ That's not--I mean, Pepper is great, Pepper is _amazing,_ but--"

"Tony," Steve says gently, squeezing his hand against her side and resting his free hand on hers. They're bunched in his shirt, and was she tugging on him? When did she start doing that, she didn't realize-- "Tony," Steve says again, and this time she meets his eyes. 

His eyes are sad, but honest. "I don't think there's much we can do to convince them. Look, Tony--they're not us. They don't come from a place where you get a guarantee that your soulmate is out there for you somewhere; they've got no guarantee that anyone is waiting for them. And, even if they did, they've got no way to know who it is--and neither do we. Your counterpart here is a man, Tony; we don't even know for sure they're soulmates. Things are different, here."

Steve's right. He's completely right, but that doesn't mean Tony has to like it, and now her vision is getting misty. 

Steve's expression softens. "Oh, Tony." He tugs her in for a hug, and she goes rather sullenly. She turns her head outward, facing away from him, and sniffs. 

"Y'know, it's a good thing you build yourself armor, or else that bleeding heart of yours would be right out in the open," Steve comments a minute later, after she's done sniffling. 

Tony punches him in the bicep and scowls. "You asshole," she gripes, boxing at him with her tiny un-armored hands, "god, you're such an asshole; I don't know why I put up with this, really I don't--" 

Steve's laughing, like he always does when she plays feisty, and catches her wrists. Tony lets him and, when he leans in for a kiss, deliberately leans away with a raised eyebrow. 

"Watch out, darling," she leers, "I might _bleed_ on you."

"The first time we met, I bled on you," Steve pointedly reminds her, then before she can react, he swoops in to nip playfully at her neck. Tony jerks and squeals in surprise, then laughs in delight as his stubble tickles against her skin. 

"Okay, okay, hot stuff; let's get down from the ledge before we plummet to our deaths play-wrestling," Tony says, because Tony is actually the responsible adult in this relationship. Nobody ever believes her, but it's true. 

...A little. It's at least a little true. 

"Yes, Ma," Steve replies drily, then lifts her gently up by the waist as he stands like the gentleman he is, settling her delicately on her feet. 

Tony turns in Steve's arms to say something, but stops at the look on his face. 

"What's up?" she asks, confused. 

Steve has that look on, again--that very particular _concerned_ look. He gets it sometimes, before they go into battle, or before she goes on a long business trip alone, or sometimes even when she's about to go face a panel of investors. He gets it exclusively when he's worried about something Tony-related (Bucky, side note, also has an exclusive Bucky-related concerned face). 

Steve just looks at her like that for a minute, quietly. Tony's becoming increasingly confused, but she can also tell that Steve is gathering his thoughts, as he sometimes does, so from experience she doesn't say anything and just stands there, instead, fidgeting restlessly in his arms. Finally, after what seems like an eon to Tony, Steve speaks. 

"I had a word with my counterpart, after you headed up," he tells her at last. One of his hands has absently drifted up to touch her face. 

"Did you, now?" Tony replies, curious. She leans into his touch as his thumb begins stroking against her jaw. 

"Mmm-hmm," Steve confirms, eyes tracking the path of his own fingers as they slide across her cheek, her chin, her neck. His pupils are slightly dilated when he meets her eyes. "You don't know why, do you?" he says, like it isn't a question. 

"I--no?" Tony says stupidly, struck dumb by the look on his face. "Not really?" Her brain might as well be a hunk of cotton when he looks at her like that; the only brain Tony is engaging, as Steve's hand rubs very distractingly across her waistline, is the one currently moistening her pants. 

His eyes spark with something foreign. "I had to warn him off my girl," Steve states completely seriously. Tony barks a laugh, and Steve smiles at her ruefully. 

"'Warn him off'? Steve, he thinks I'm hot, sure, but it doesn't stretch much deeper than that." Tony stares at Steve in amused disbelief. She feels incredulous when his expression doesn't change, and blurts out, "Seriously? Steve, he doesn't even know me!" 

"Yeah," he says quietly, "I could tell that's what you thought it was." His eyes skim over her. "Didn't seem like you really noticed the looks he was giving you earlier. He _wants_ you, Tony, not just physically. I would, too." Steve's quiet for another moment before he admits, "I can tell he feels exactly the way I would, if I didn't have you." _Long-suffering,_ Steve doesn't say, _and lonely._

"You need to be careful around him," he finishes. 

His eyes burn into her like a brand, and Tony feels a flutter in her stomach. She reaches out and cups Steve's chin; he closed his eyes and leans into her hands. 

"Even if he were that interested, which I'm still not convinced he is," Tony begins, barreling on when Steve opens his mouth to interject, "Even if he _were,_ Steve, you're still my soulmate. _You._ _He_ doesn't have my words on his arm, so as bad as I might feel for him, Steve, you come first. You will _always_ come first. These," Tony says, placing a hand over where her words sit under his shirt sleeve, "are on _your_ arm, _not_ his." 

Steve, though she can tell he's still uncertain, seems reassured by all this. He sighs shakily and hugs her close, pressing his lips to her hair. Tony just wraps her arms around him firmly and pours every bit of love she has for him into the embrace. 

"I know," he murmurs into her scalp, and swallows. "Logically, I know, but that doesn't stop me from being jealous."

"Well, he _is_ you, so, y'know--he's attractive," Tony admits to Steve's sternum. "My libido hasn't been this sad and confused since _Brokeback Mountain._ " 

Steve chuffs at that, his laughter puffing through her hair. "I hate that movie," he says, but he still sounds amused anyway. 

"Yeah, well, you also hated _Tinker Bell and the Neverbeast_ , and I even _warned_ you that one was going to be sad," Tony points out. 

"You said the ending was a little sad," Steve complains, "not _Romeo and Juliet_ sad."

"Why don't you complain about it some more, Vidia," Tony sneers as they head back towards the elevator. 

"' _I wish I knew how to quit you,_ '" Steve says in an awful Southern accent. Tony punches him. He chuckles. 

"So, what do we do now?" Tony says seriously, and watches as Steve instantly sobers with her change of tone. "We need a game plan."

"I suppose we have to wait for Thor to get back," Steve admits reluctantly, after a moment of thought. "It's not optimal, but it's all we can do. Unless the portal acts up again, we have no other leads." 

It's the same conclusion Tony had come to, not that she has to like it, so she just nods and sighs. A large part of her doesn't even want to voice her next idea. 

"It'd be good if I could get the armor operable again," Tony finally grinds out reluctantly, running over all the damage in her head. "It shouldn't take too long, if I can get Man-Tony to let me use his lab. And even if he doesn't, I'm sure I can still get in without his permission."

"I'll find my suit and shield," Steve agrees, looking steadier and fairly determined now that they're sorting themselves out. Tony smiles. 

"Sounds like a plan," she agrees. 

_Mission_ , Tony thinks as they board the elevator, _Suit up._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony faces Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I've been slaving over this for long enough, haha. The last third hasn't been proofread, but I just needed to get it done and published; I'll go back and agonize over it later. For now, I hope you enjoy <3
> 
> EDIT: I have agonized appropriately, and am now thoroughly satisfied with the chapter. For those of you getting two notifications, I'm terribly sorry! The new version of the chapter is so drastically different, I felt obligated to send a second notice out. Anyway, thanks for reading; enjoy!
> 
> Also AO3 definitely fucked all my italics again, I'll go back and fix them tomorrow but now I have to go pass out hahaha

Tony and Steve go their separate ways, and Tony finds her way down to her counterpart's lab. Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be in the same place as Tony's--same floor, same hallway, same sneaky, "secret" staircase down from an unobtrusive closet-looking doorway. On her way there, though, she takes the opportunity to check everything out.

The biggest differences Tony can see between their towers (besides the whole Stark-not-Avengers thing) come from her counterpart's absolutely garish tastes in interior decorating. Not all of it's bad, to be fair--mahogany? Good, great; dark woods are always an excellent choice. Glass and steel surfaces? Perfect, Tony's on board; modernism is always the way to go, when tastefully applied. She strolls idly through the kitchen area and past the residential spaces with a vague, almost perverted sort of curiosity. As with the tower back home, Pepper clearly had a hand in all this. Tony can see her touches everywhere--the flowers on the drawing board by the elevator; the Ming vase sitting on the bar... This place is clearly as much Pepper's as it is Other Tony's.

The thing Tony really misses, walking through this version of the tower...is some subtlety. Everything is about 1.5 times larger than it is back home, every appliance and every entryway, and honestly, Tony knows she has an enormous ego, but _really_. It's like the guy has a height complex or something. She makes a face at the pop art hanging above the bar, because pop art? Really?

...Tony knows she's stalling.

For all her bluster and hero play, Tony actually really hates confrontation. And her counterpart hasn't exactly been welcoming, to be fair, but Tony is also self-aware enough to recognize that that reasoning in itself is just an invented excuse to avoid him. If someone dropped in on her doorstep wearing an Iron Man suit, she'd have the same reaction.

The uncomfortable truth of it is that she doesn't enjoy being confronted with herself in bright, vivid, snarky technicolor. It makes her reexamine her flaws in a way that makes her skin crawl and brings back all the old inklings of low self-esteem.

Eventually, Tony runs out of things to judge silently, and ends up standing at the bottom of the lab stairway contemplating the very closed, very locked door.

"I don't suppose you can let me in, JARVIS," Tony offers, wrinkling her nose at the giant painting of himself Man-Tony has chosen to display in this particular location. Ugh.

"You are unfortunately correct, ma'am. I cannot," JARVIS replies, rather ruefully, bless his heart. "In fact, I am expressly forbidden from doing so."

Tony shrugs. "No worries; it was worth a shot." If he's not gentleman enough to open the door, she'll just have to let herself in. She hacks his security systems with an ease that is almost insulting, and the lab door opens with a hiss.

The lab, other than being 1.5 times bigger, looks pretty much the same. She can hear some kind of welding or metalwork going on further in, so clearly someone's at home, which makes it doubly rude that he locked her out.

"Hey, Daddy Issues," Tony calls out to announce herself as she strolls inside. JARVIS helpfully closes and locks the door behind her.

A table farther in vibrates with an impact and a muffled _thunk-clang_ echoes through the lab, followed by a vibrant curse. Man-Tony pops up from behind his work, glaring at her and running an oil-stained hand over the back of his head.

"JARVIS, what happened to keeping her out?" her counterpart snaps pointedly after he's up, whipping the grease rag he was holding into some dark corner of the lab.

"Her intimate knowledge of the tower's systems prevented me, sir," is JARVIS's apologetic reply. Tony hides her smirk behind her hand and pretends not to see the angry look that Man-Tony shoots her.

"Anyway, Princess," her counterpart continues, with clear irritation at having his solitude disturbed, "in case the locked door wasn't a big enough hint, I'm not currently accepting visitors. Get out before I call security, and by security I mean the Hulk."

He hasn't looked at her this whole time, Tony observes. She watches him stalk about in his bare feet with mild, unfeigned interest, simply curious to see what he'll decide to do next. The whole barefoot thing is very interesting, actually, because bare feet mean he was too preoccupied to grab socks or shoes before he came down here. Usually that only happens when Tony's struck by some brilliant idea that absolutely can't wait for stupid things like foot coverings, but considering the circumstances she's going to have to go with door number two: really thoroughly fucked with. Obviously this whole dimensional travel thing has shaken him up way worse than he's letting on, if he's using the lab to cope. The anger, too, she recognizes as one of their biggest defense mechanisms; it's a way they avoid confronting things that upset them on a deeper level. Interesting.

As with all unfamiliar objects, the compulsion to study her counterpart and unravel all his mysteries is strong, even more so because he's _technically_ her. They're similar in ways Tony herself would never even have noticed or predicted, given the chance, and observing him now, Tony has the keen sense that her deep and thorough understanding of him is exactly what makes her male self feel so deeply unsettled.

 _I can see right through you, buddy,_ Tony thinks. _Ain't that just a peach._

If he focused long enough to think about it, he'd probably realize it goes both ways. The hair on the back of her neck prickles.

"What are you working on?" she says out loud, wandering further in while he occupies himself by poking agitatedly at a hologram.

He closes it down abruptly, whatever it was, and whips around to shoot her a seething, hateful glare. It's so sudden Tony flinches back in shock.

"None of your business," he tells her, words so precise he practically spits them. He stares at her with real, open hatred in his eyes, then stalks around the table and starts cleaning up, shoving circuits and servos this way and that with sharp, irritated movements.

Tony, meanwhile, is speechless. The intensity of his hatred is like a sucker punch to the gut. It's so real, so unexpectedly visceral, that for a moment she has no response. Her words fail her. How the hell do you even respond to that kind of raw emotion?

Why does he hate her so much? He doesn't even know...

 _Oh,_ Tony thinks faintly as everything clicks into place. No, of course. Of course; it all makes sense. Of course he hates her.

She's _him._

"Serving me that special self-hatred, huh?" Tony says weakly before she can think better of it.

He flinches, hard, and stops what he's doing, facing away from her. His knuckles clench white on the edge of the table, so hard the metal creaks. His whole body is stiff, and all the muscles she can see are so tense, she herself starts tensing warily.

After a moment, and without facing her, he slowly lifts his head.

"Get out," he orders, voice full of barely-restrained anger.

Tony's resolve falters a little under the press of his tone, but she still doesn't move. Instead, she stays where she is, frozen.

"Did you hear me, Tinkerbell?" he says again, straightening further where he's still turned away from her. His hands leave their vice grip on the edge of the table to press hard against the glass top, instead. "I said _leave._ "

 _I'm an idiot,_ Tony thinks, swallowing. But she doesn't move.

Several seconds pass in tense silence, until suddenly he snaps. He slams his hands on the table and rounds on her; she flinches at the sound, stumbling back a step as he finishes turning to face her. Tony just stares at him like a deer in the headlights. She's looking, she's staring right at his expression, but despite all that she still feels like she can't accurately describe what she sees.

It's like the physical representation of all the self-hatred she's ever felt, gathered and concentrated and given material form. Every dark thought and moment of anger, every black, foul mood, is manifested on his face. The malice she had only glimpsed earlier is back, fully formed, roaring in his eyes and in the twist of his face. His nostrils flare as he breathes in.

"Did you hear me?" he asks again, face warping into an expression of mock curiosity, a sign he's well and truly mad. "I told you to _get out._ "

"Yeah, I heard that one," Tony admits slowly, blinking carefully. She pauses to lick her lips, watching his reaction carefully as she continues.

"Look, I'm not here to judge you--" He snorts; Tony barrels on, "--no, honestly, I'm not, really. There is nothing I'd love more right now than to get out of your hair so we can both get on with our lives, but I think we both know that at this point, it's not going to happen. So can we maybe, I don't know, make some sort of truce, or something? Look, I don't hate you; _honestly_ I don't--"

He starts laughing, loud and mocking and clearly disbelieving. "A truce? What, like this is some kind of negotiation between countries? 'I'll stop bombing you if you stop shooting my journalists;' is that what you think this is?" Tony's face burns hot with humiliation and anger, but she refuses to give him even an inch of ground. She stares back at him fiercely, uncowed, even as he moves in close to deliver the final blow.

"If we're giving our terms, here, then I only have one. I _never_ want to see your face again," he spits. His eyes glitter with hostility, driving home what would have a deep blow, three years ago.

But that was three years ago. Tony, fortunately, has come a hell of a long way since then.

"Too bad," she lashes back, gratified to see him flinch. "Only way to do that is to never look in a mirror."

Tony is _pissed._

She's done taking punches, and he can clearly see it based on how his whole demeanor changes from aggressive to warily defensive, hands coming up as he backs out of her space, but it's too late; her hackles are up. She stalks toward him, matching him step for step until she's got him cornered against his work station the same way he had her cornered just seconds ago.

"You think you can pull this childish temper tantrum bullshit with me? Let me tell you, Manscape, I wrote the fucking _book_ on temper tantrums. If you thought I would flee in shame after one piddling insult, you were sadly mistaken," she spits, shoving her finger into his chest. He opens his mouth to say something, and she steamrolls right over him. "No, I'm not finished. I did you the favor of listening to your little speech without telling you it was a crock of shit; you can damn well do the same for me. How Pepper copes with your inferiority complex is beyond me, because even _Steve_ struggles to cope with mine and he's _literally destined to love me._ I know for a fact I'm an arrogant bitch; you don't run a Fortune 500 company without a hell of an ego--but is your head _actually up your own asshole?_ I am _appalled_ to think you have functioned this long in society without being publicly alerted to these shortcomings, and the only reason I haven't knocked you flat and left yet is because I know that this is an entirely new level of assholery, even for you. 

"I also know for a _fact_ that the real and only reason you're being such an asshole to me is because I'm _you,_ " Tony concludes. "Except, news flash: I'm actually _not,_ because as similar as we might be, I _really don't hate you._ You and I are both perfectly acceptable human beings, once we stop letting our own feelings of inadequacy influence our decisions."

And with that, Tony huffs and steps back.

"I'm gonna go use the bathroom," she declares with a tone that brooks no argument. "That gives you anywhere from five to ten minutes to mull this over, depending on how long it takes me to poop."

And with that, Tony makes a very dignified exit.

She finds Steve on the balcony level with Bruce and Clint, looking over Steve's damaged suit. They all look up when she comes in, and Clint immediately raises both his eyebrows.

"Whoa, jeez. Did you piss someone off, or something?" he asks as she approaches, probably still fuming visibly.

"Other way around," Tony answers, planting herself restlessly on a table.  
Steve looks concerned.

"I thought you were going to find the lab," he says, a question in his eyes. Bruce glances at Steve and frowns.

"Oh, I found it alright," Tony says with great irritation, "And inside it, I found _myself._ Shut up, Barton; you know what I mean," she adds when Clint opens his mouth to inevitably make some stupid joke about Buddhism or hippies or something.

"You two had a fight?" Bruce asks, his frown deepening.

"Pop quiz, Bruce," Tony says to begin her explanation. "Who does Tony Stark hate more than anyone else on Earth?"

"...Is this a trick question?" Clint asks after a moment.

"I...suppose it would have to be himself," Bruce says, clearly bemused. "But what does that have to do with..."

"Oh, I'm getting to that part," Tony says, shifting where she sits.

She gives them a quick and dirty run-down of the encounter, which takes up about five of the ten allotted minutes she gave herself.

"I would say I'm surprised you used pooping as an excuse, but despite only having known you for a day, somehow I'm really not," Clint says thoughtfully.

"Tony," Steve says, brow creased with worry, "Are you sure saying all that was a good idea?"

"I had nothing to lose. I mean, he already hates me," she points out, rubbing her temples slowly. "Worst case scenario, nothing changes. He won't kick us out; that would go against his sense of duty."

Bruce looks at her quietly for a moment. "Thanks for telling us," he says finally. There's the smallest crease of worry in his brow, probably for the state of Man-Tony's already fragile mental health. Clint, meanwhile, watches everyone with unsettlingly perceptive eyes, then looks at the clock.

"Potty break's almost over," he points out, lifting one eyebrow casually.

"Don't try to tell me how long I should be pooping for, Clint. Rude," Tony chides, hopping off the table anyway.

Steve's still looking at her. "Do you want me to go with you?" he asks. Tony appreciates that he makes it an offer, not a demand.

"No," she says, smiling a little, "I can handle myself."

Clint snorts at the joke, and Steve's eyes twinkle. Tony boards the elevator feeling significantly better, but the sense of levity fades rapidly as JARVIS carries her back to the lab.

By the time the lab door opens before her, Tony's feeling very sober--too sober. She makes a split-second decision and doubles back to the bar for a decanter of whiskey, hoping the booze might serve as a peace offering as she hurries back to the lab. 

She pauses at the threshold, tumblers clinking in her hand, then steels herself and steps cautiously inside.

Man-Tony's sitting in a chair, facing away from her. He has to have heard her come in, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't turn or acknowledge her presence in any way, actually. He hasn't even tensed up.

As Tony continues to creep closer and still fails to get any sort of reaction from him, she starts to get a sneaking suspicion about what's going on...

Very, very slowly, and holding her breath, Tony peeks around the edge of the chair, using the same level of caution you might employ with an angry bear.

Then she sees his face, and the tension rushes out of her in a sigh of relief.

He's sleeping. Passed out cold in a lab chair--and good thing, too; he's got the kind of dark circles you usually only see on post-doc candidates and med students doing residency.

Carefully and gently, so as not to make any noise, Tony sets down the decanter and glasses she carried down from the bar. She looks at her counterpart for a moment, then shakes her head, huffing with a weary sense of empathy.

After some searching, she finds the Emergency Lab Nap blanket stuffed in the back of some desk drawer and drapes it over him. He snuffles a little and shifts in his sleep, but settles back down right away with a puff of air. Tony shakes her head.

"God, I'm a piece of work," she mutters to the room at large. She leans back in the chair and thinks back to the damage she saw on her suit earlier, and begins drafting a rough repair plan in her mind while she waits patiently for Sleeping Beauty to wake.

 

 

Tony couldn't really tell you how long she sits there lost in her own thoughts. But regardless of when it happens, she's roused some time later by stirrings from across the table.

There's a moment where, despite them both being awake, neither of them says anything. Tony does her counterpart the courtesy of pretending she's not paying attention, giving him a minute to finish waking fully and gather his thoughts.

"...How long was I out?" he asks finally, voice rough from sleep. Tony turns, then, and watches while he rubs his eyes.

"Couldn't say," she answers truthfully, deliberately keeping her voice lighter than usual. She reaches out to pick up the decanter and lifts it. "Drink?"

"My own whiskey," he says with faint amusement, still blinking sleep from his eyes. "You shouldn't have."

"What can I say, I'm a generous woman," Tony replies in kind, and pours them both a couple fingers.

They pick up their glasses and drink in silence. Tony focuses on enjoying the lingering burn the whiskey leaves as it slides down her throat, on the warm, smokey taste in her mouth and on her breath. The drink in her hand makes it easier to be patient while she waits for him to speak.

"I guess I shouldn't have been surprised you wouldn't back down," he says, after a while. Tony huffs.

"Yeah, well. 'Don't tickle sleeping dragons,' and all that," she murmurs, taking another sip of whiskey. She waits for the burn to pass and swallows, licks her lips. "I did kind of rip into you, though. Sorry about that."

"Nah, I deserved it," he snorts, staring down into his drink ruefully. "I was being a jackass." He contemplates it for another minute, rotating the glass between his palms, then sighs and takes another swallow.

"Once I cooled off and thought about it, I realized you were right," he admits quietly, looking down at his lap with a tired expression. "I was grafting my feelings onto you." He looks up at her. "Sorry about that."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm not really mad or anything," Tony says, waving it off. "It's not like I can't handle it."

"Yeah, speaking of that," Man-Tony says, voice gaining some strength, "You are one ruthless, cold-hearted bitch."

"Thanks," Tony says with a smile. "Same to you."

He smiles back.

"Okay," he says a few minutes later, once they've both finished their whiskey, "Now, I know you didn't come down here just to give me a reality check. What did you _really_ come down here for?"

"What, maybe I have a side career as a psychologist; you don't know," Tony says; he just snorts disbelievingly and gives her a look, a knowing glint in his eye. Tony stops bullshitting and says, "I was hoping to fix my armor."

The satisfied face he makes says that's exactly what he was expecting to hear. He stands, sets his glass down on the table, and says, "JARVIS, bring the lady's suit out of storage, if you please."

"Of course, sir," JARVIS responds immediately. It seems he anticipated this command, because Tony's damaged suit rises right up from underneath the floor without any kind of wait period. Man-Tony turns, hands in his pockets, and looks at her.

"Well, here it is," he announces needlessly. Tony puts her glass down and stands, bracing herself for the sight of the damage.

They both stare down at it for a while, contemplating the mess. Between the giant hole in the chest and the unrelated battle damage, Tony's estimating at least a day's repair work before she's back at full functionality.

"You seem a little overwhelmed," Man-Tony observes.

"Yes, thank you, _Clint;_ I _am_ a little overwhelmed," Tony retorts, eyeing the suit.

"I could lend a hand, if you want," her counterpart offers, after a pause during which Tony seriously considers just using one of Natasha's leather catsuits and hoping for the best.

Tony turns to look at him and raises an eyebrow. She makes a show of leaning back and looking him up and down, humming dubiously in her throat while he stands there and stares back drily.

"I guess you'll do," she acquiesces after what she feels is an adequate amount of feigned hemming and hawing. Man-Tony shakes his head.

"You're as bad as Pepper," he says, as if that offends him.

"I will take that as the compliment it is," Tony declares, starting up a hologram. "Now let's get to work."

 

 

Several hours into their work, probably sometime around dinner, Steve makes his appearance.

"Miss Stark," JARVIS says, bringing Tony back to the world of the living. Her hands pause in what they're doing, and she tilts her head.

"Yes, JARVIS?" she says, setting her tools down on the bench where she's been busy reshaping the upper chest panels on her suit. _That was unsettling,_ she thinks, rubbing her knuckles against her lower sternum to ground herself and ward off the lingering feelings of uneasiness. For a minute there, before she'd come out of the zone, she'd almost forgotten where she was. Tony glances across the room to where Man-Tony is running calculations in the corner, and shakes her head.

"Sorry, go ahead," she says, since JARVIS has obviously been waiting.

"Captain Rogers is outside, requesting entrance," JARVIS informs her smoothly.

"Which one?" Man-Tony asks before she can, his eyes lifting to meet hers briefly through the hologram.

" _Miss_ Stark's," JARVIS replies.

"Oh. Sure, that's fine, let him in," her counterpart confirms immediately, already re-absorbed in his work. Tony could ask several questions about that, but doesn't, instead stripping off her gloves with one pointedly raised eyebrow.

The door chimes softly and opens, admitting one Steve, who looks around with mild curiosity as he enters.

"Done letting Clint poke it?" Tony offers as she comes over to meet him, grabbing his full attention. Steve smiles and hefts the lumpy bundle in his arms.

"For now," he allows, looking down at her for a moment. He glances up, once, looking at her counterpart, then looks back at her.

"What have you two been up to?" Steve asks, casually. The question's directed at both of them, but he's looking at her with a different question in his eyes as he says it. _How did it turn out?_

"Not much; just suit repairs," Tony says with a smile. _Good._ "Turns out I'm not a _complete_ jackass," she jokes, shooting an amused look at her counterpart, who's been standing at his workstation across the lab and trying to pretend he isn't listening.

"I let you into my home, my lab, my heart, and this is how I'm repaid--with backhanded compliments," he now says disappointedly, shaking his head and tutting once as his fingers fly through the hologram. "Absolutely ungrateful."

Tony looks at Steve, who has that amused twinkle in his eye. She shakes her head and sighs, gesturing vaguely.

"See what I have to work with?" she complains, leading him over to the table. "Anyway, how's your suit looking?"

"It took a pretty good beating," Steve says somewhat ruefully, setting it down on the table. Working together, they untangle and spread out the cloth of his ruined uniform until it's fully laid out, displayed so they can both see and Tony can get a better look. She leans in and frowns over it, hands running over the myriad of scorch marks and holes in the material.

"Man, you weren't kidding. Jeez." She pinches her lips and frowns down at it. Back in her lab, this wouldn't be hard to fix, but...

"Hey Man Status?" Tony calls out, wiggling her fingers absently in a hole next to the star.

"Hmm? Oh, you mean me," her counterpart responds from across the lab, finally pulling the rest of his attention away from his work. "What's up?"

"Come see," Tony invites, gesturing him over.

"Cap's suit took a beating," she says without preamble once he reaches the table. He leans over the table and peers down curiously, pushing the tools she'd been using on the chest piece aside absently so he can get a better look.

"You have anything here that can fix it?" Tony asks, watching as he looks it over speculatively. "I had a rig just for Steve's suit repairs back home, but, y'know. That was me. Not everything's analogous."

"You don't say," he mutters, glancing up at her with a little glimmer of amusement before returning his attention to the damage.

He inspects it for several seconds, puts his fingers through a hole in the suit and frowns at it the same way she did. He wiggles them idly the same way she did, thinking, then says, "Yeah, I have something similar. Not for Cap specifically, of course, but it should work well enough. Let's give it a shot," he declares finally, gathering the suit up and moving away across the lab. Tony glances at Steve, who's been watching them with fascination, and grins at how unsettled he looks.

"Uncanny, isn't it?" she says lowly, looking over at her counterpart where he's putzing around the opposite end of the lab.

"That's one word for it," Steve says, shaking his head. He looks back at her, then adds somewhat ruefully, "I guess I can understand your feelings about my double, now. This is incredibly confusing."

"Why, Captain Rogers," Tony says, equal parts shocked, delighted, and strangely aroused, "are you telling me that you're _lusting_ after a _man?_ "

Steve pinks a little and scratches the back of his head.

"Well, I wouldn't call it _lusting,_ " he admits, "but he _is_ you..."

If he says anything else, Tony doesn't hear it over her sheer, unbridled glee at all the possibilities this opens. She opens her mouth to say something else, but she's cut off by the very focus of their discussion.

"Hey, lovebirds," her counterpart calls out loudly, "Can we put the sweet nothings on hold for just a few seconds?"

Tony looks at Steve, amused. Steve, in response, tries to appear stern and fails; there's a smile on his lips when he calls, "We're coming, Tony."

"Don't think you're getting out of it that easily," Tony mutters under her breath as they cross the room. "We _will_ finish this discussion later."

The piece of tech Man-Tony's standing with is already started up; Steve's suit is underneath a glass shield in a compartment that's glowing with blue light. Steve stands back, looking mildly interested, but as always he isn't too interested in the inner workings of the thing so much as the job it does. Tony, meanwhile, is very interested in the workings and has no concept of personal space, so she sidles in close to her counterpart to get a good look at the thing.

"Looks a lot like what I have back at my place," she says with interest, peering into the body of the machine and watching, fascinated, as it whirs and hums, the light within the compartment shimmering and moving over the fabric. "Is it in scanning phase?"

"Yeah, it just initialized. JARVIS and I have to fill in the missing pieces, obviously," Man-Tony says, dragging and highlighting the hologram in front of him into a whole, undamaged model of Steve's suit. He glances at Steve and adds, "Your suit design's a little different than our Cap's, which, well, is to be expected, but it still means legwork."

"Makes sense," Tony agrees, still watching the machine.

She'd like to stay and watch Man-Tony and JARVIS work for another moment longer, but the itch to get her own hands on a piece of tech gets to be too hard to ignore. Tony turns to get Steve's attention, then stops, blinking with surprise. His eyes are already focused on hers, bright and arresting.

"I'm...gonna get back to work," she says, nonplussed. She pauses and tilts her head, brow creasing gently. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Tony," he says after a moment, smiling fondly with a familiar softness around his eyes. Tony gets it, then, and chuffs, swatting him playfully on the arm.

"Your thing for working women is silly," she scolds him, shaking her head. Steve, as usual, is entirely unrepentant, mischief lurking in his eyes.

"Alright, that's enough; stop it before you start ripping off each other's clothing," Man-Tony says loudly, breaking the moment and stepping in between them. "Having sex on my lab surfaces that doesn't include me is strictly prohibited."

"Well, technically," Steve begins drily, the same time Tony says, "So it's fine if we make it a threesome?"

"--Tony," Steve says, scandalized, and simultaneously Man-Tony replies, "Well, I'd have to call Pepper first..."

Steve's ears are as red as tomatoes. He doesn't seem to know what to do with himself, and appears to be torn between indignant disapproval and bewildered curiosity. Tony bursts out laughing.

"Okay, okay, that's enough; we've had our fun--Steve, you're free. Go on, we'll stop fucking with you," Tony says between laughs, grinning at her bemused fiancé.

Steve just gives them both a stern look (which might have worked, if his ears weren't still pink), and leaves the lab with a sigh, shaking his head.

"Tell JARVIS if you need me," he calls on his way out.

"Will do," Tony responds.

The lab door closes with a hiss, and Tony turns to her counterpart.

"Yours has a much better sense of humor," Man-Tony says as they head back to their work stations. "I must admit I'm jealous."

"You've got to coax it out of them," Tony says, sidling back onto her stool. "Steve's pretty funny, once he loosens up." She glances over at the machine with Steve's suit in it. It's whirring along happily without any apparent supervision.

"How long's that thing gonna take?" she asks, pulling on her gloves.

"The suit? Three, maybe four hours, give or take; JARVIS will let us know when it's done," Man-Tony says, reopening his work. "But anyway, we've still gotta finish fixing your suit, Pixie Stick."

"The Tinkerbell comparison only works because I invent things," Tony replies stubbornly, shoving a welding mask on her head. She turns back to the chest piece, picks up her tools, and gets back to work.

 

 

It's been dark out for a while by the time Tony reattaches the last joint on the faceplate. Her back makes a horrendous popping sound when she straightens, and she groans, lifting her arms to stretch all the parts of her body that ache from stooping over a workbench all day--which is most of them.

"Well, that's that," her counterpart declares, wiping his hands on an oil rag. He hands it off to her wordlessly, and Tony gratefully wipes her hands.

"Thanks," she says, tossing it on the table with the armor, which lays there dormant on the table gleaming red and gold.

"Something tells me I'll need to use it soon," Tony says, not sure what compels her to voice the thought.

"Well, you'll need it for the trip home, if nothing else," he agrees. His jaw cracks on a yawn, and he glances at the time on his phone, then quirks a brow. "Nightcap?"

"Sure, why not," Tony agrees amicably.

They nip up to the bar for a bottle of brandy and tote it up to the roof, on Tony's suggestion. She feels the need to be outside beneath the open sky, after spending so much time cooped up in the lab.

"Cheers to genius," her counterpart declares after pouring them a finger of brandy each. Their glasses clink, and the sound of the crystal rings as Tony tosses back her head and drinks half of it down in one gulp.

"We did good," she says after a moment of peaceful silence, smiling at the New York skyline.

"Yup," her counterpart says, looking as satisfied as she feels.

They sit there enjoying each other's company for a while, Tony relishing the feel of the wind whipping through her hair. The sounds of New York echo up below them, sirens and voices and vehicles blending together in the white noise of the city.

And then, suddenly, the air on the roof is disturbed by a massive explosion of activity.

Tony doesn't even have time to react to the sudden, deafening roar of wind in her ears; she's too preoccupied by the sudden change in perspective brought about by the force that sucks her back off the ledge, pulling her body towards the center of the roof.

The abrupt lurch of the motion rips her glass from her hand, brandy and all, and sends it flying off the roof. Tony follows its fall, transfixed, as her world tilts on its axis.

 _My nightcap,_ she thinks sadly, and then her back slams _hard_ into the gravel and she's skidding, skull rattling like a tin can, across the hard surface of the roof.

The wind was knocked out of her the second her back hit the ground, and Tony reels, flailing, when she finally comes to a halt, gasping for air.

"Oh, my god, I am _so_ sorry," a man's voice is saying, sounding sincerely alarmed and apologetic, "I had no idea anyone would be up here at this time of night; I didn't think to look--"

Tony can hear her male counterpart on the other side of the roof making very clear _exactly_ what he thinks of this entire situation, swearing as violently as he can between breathless wheezes.

Tony, once her vision stops spinning, manages to roll onto her side and fight down the accompanying wave of nausea. She closes her eyes, chest heaving.

"You," Tony says, with an extreme sense of vindication possessed only by someone whose has just had their drink thrown off a roof, "are a _fuck._ "

"I beg your pardon," the voice says indignantly.

"You heard the woman," her counterpart says, a little less breathily. "You, sir, are a _fuck._ "

He rolls over with a groan, then adds, "And also, trespassing."

Tony is just lucid enough to see the stranger make some kind of weird motion with his hands, and suddenly Tony can breathe again. She takes a deep, gasping breath and sits up, grasping her head with both hands and trying very hard not to vomit from the whiplash.

Once she has it together enough to think, Tony opens her eyes.

"Who the fuck is this," she asks her counterpart flatly.

"No idea, but he's ruined my nightcap. You better have a damn good reason for disturbing the sanctity of my roof, pal," Man-Tony snaps, on his feet and scowling at the man despite their several-inch height difference.

The man's cape, much like Thor's, flaps majestically in the wind. He seems bemusedly confused, looking from one of them to the other with clear puzzlement on his face.

"Sorry; this...this is really not how I had hoped this would go," he admits, frowning through his impressively styled goatee. "I'm Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme."

"Tony Stark," both Tony and her counterpart respond in snarky, defiant unison. A look of comprehension dawns on Doctor Strange's face.

"...Ah," he says, looking between the two of them with new understanding. "Well, then. That, unfortunately, will be why I'm here."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony hits a wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could probably have gone a little longer with this chapter, but after waiting so long to see Doctor Strange I just wanted to get it out. Boy, am I glad I waited, though, even if I _was_ the last person in the world to see it, because holy shit the movie mythos is a loooooot different than the canon. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, folks! We should be back to a regular schedule now. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> EDIT: Went back and made some general changes; things should be more polished and less clunky this time around <3 (Also AO3 y u always remove my formatting, _pls_ )

"What do you mean, 'unfortunately,'" Tony's counterpart says, looking visibly offended by the implication Tony's presence here could be construed as negative. His change in attitude, now that they're on the same wavelength, is actually kind of touching; he's gone from death threats to papa bear in less than twenty-four hours. Normally, Tony would verbally acknowledge the emotional progress he's made--she's all about learning to reduce team-wide angst, which seems to be particularly abundant here--but: they're currently alone, suit-less, and have low to middling chances of being thrown off the Tower roof should combat ensue. 

It should go without saying that Tony's all for encouraging personal and emotional growth. _However._

In this case, the mysterious teleporting stranger takes priority. 

Therefore: "Uhh, I'm sorry," Tony says, raising an eminently skeptical eyebrow. "Did you just say ' _Sorcerer Supreme'?_ "

Unfortunately for all, Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme (who the hell _names_ these people), doesn't get a chance to answer. As soon as the words have left Tony's mouth, the elevator doors on the other side of the roof slide open with a quiet, innocuous ' _ding._ '

Then, every other Avenger currently staying at the Tower pours out of it and onto the empty rooftop, battle-ready and with weapons and/or powers bristling--including two Steves, both wielding their shields. Before anyone can do so much as blink, they've fanned out in a rough semicircle formation around the elevator like a well-oiled machine. They shift like predators once they're in their positions, five sets of eyes (and, Tony's certain, every single one of JARVIS's cameras) trained on the unknown and potentially hostile element, the intruder in their territory: Doctor Strange.

The gravel, meanwhile, is still digging into Tony's butt-cheeks.

"Party on the roof," her counterpart declares, throwing his hands up helpfully.

Tony, supine and now feeling the warmth of the brandy she threw back minutes ago seeping into her veins, takes in the stare-down in the gritty, atmospheric lighting of the rooftop with the same magnanimous air she imagines a queen might have had just before watching a royal joust. Her eyes rove over to the other side of the roof, and she idly takes stock of her teammates.

It's clear just from initial observations that nobody was prepared this (well, insofar as they, the Avengers, are ever _not_ prepared for _anything_ ). Natasha seems prepared, of course, but Bruce and Clint have both changed into their PJs since the last time Tony saw them, which, given the circumstances, is...pretty hilarious, actually, because Bruce likes to wear those nice, matching sets of department store old-man pajamas. Clint, for his part, is _definitely_ not wearing a real shirt. His sleek, mechanically advanced quiver is slung awkwardly over whatever shitty, threadbare tank top, he threw on before bed, and though he _does_ seem to have bothered putting his gloves on in whatever scant seconds he had before they all came storming up here, Tony's ninety percent certain those are slippers on his feet. Steve ( _her_ Steve), meanwhile, is still barefoot, and still wearing the exact same borrowed t-shirt and sweatpants. 

Which presumably means he's still not wearing underwear.

Tony idly absorbs all of this from her prone position amid a cast of battle-ready heroes and a startled Doctor Strange, and, slowly but surely, she feels the steady, rhythmic throb of an impending stress headache fire up just behind her temples.

Though, to be fair, it could be the dehydration and the brandy talking. 

Still: "Shame we lost the booze," Tony offers blithely to her counterpart and herself, eyeing the shattered remains of the decanter lying on the gravel in the neutral zone. (She's only half kidding: Tony, and thus presumably her counterpart, is much better at negotiating ceasefires when she isn't sober.)

"Stark. JARVIS said we have an intruder," Other-Steve announces finally over the wind, all these things having transpired in maybe ten or fifteen seconds since Tony's first question about Doctor Alliteration's title. 

"What's going on here?" he continues almost accusatorially, looking at them with flinty eyes as if Tony and Tony somehow have something to do with Doctor Strange's uninvited appearance on the top of the Tower. 

Tony feels vaguely offended. She glances over at her counterpart, but the withering, muted glower he's serving up the Captain says that this isn't something unusual in their universe. God, if this is how they talk to each other all the time, Tony's not surprised the relationship is tense. 

_Her_ Steve, meanwhile, chooses this moment to leave his position on the edge of the formation and cross the last few feet to Tony's side. He bends slightly and extends his free hand to her in a wordless offer, his eyes still firmly on Doctor Strange. Tony, whose muscles are still somewhat wobbly from the shock, takes his hand gratefully and allows him to haul her up, wincing minutely at the pinch and scattering of gravel under her feet. Even before she's fully standing, Steve's maneuvering them back carefully towards a safer position, covering her with his shield as his eyes watch their target for any sudden movements. Then, overprotective and over-concerned gentleman that he is, Steve quietly (and predictably) nudges Tony behind him, putting his broad, muscular shoulders between her and danger. 

(This sort of thing is nothing new--Steve almost always does this if he's nearby when she gets caught without the suit. Tony, meanwhile, with her six black belts and bevy of un-suited combat experience, always inwardly rolls her eyes, but they've had conversations about his protective behavior a million different times, and Steve never budges, so. Tony appreciates the sentiment behind Steve's actions, if not the unintended mollycoddling.)

"Well, five minutes ago, this _was_ a nightcap," Tony tells them all drily, raising her voice to be heard above the wind as she touches Steve's trapezius fondly. Better to pretend she didn't notice anything odd, than to react to the accusatory undertones in Not-Steve's question. Bringing it up now would only create a divided front.

Her counterpart seems to think similarly, or follows her lead, at the very least. "Avengers," he declares, pitching his voice to carry and gesturing grandly as he steps forward, "Meet Doctor Stephen Strange." He strolls casually through the neutral space in a bold move, obviously intended to defuse some of the tension in the night air. 

"Dr. Strange, the Avengers," he continues, casting his eyes around the assemblage with an easy air as if he's knocking elbows in a tux at a charity dinner party, not preventing a fight between some of the world's strongest heroes, rumpled and covered in gravel dust. 

"The Doctor says he felt a disturbance in the Force and came to help. He's here to address our doppelgänger problem," her man-self adds almost belatedly, glancing over at Tony with an appropriately quirked eyebrow. Tony feels the corner of her own mouth twitch in return.

Obvious or not, his play seems to have worked, if their teammates' body language is an accurate indicator: Natasha's chin has lifted, Clint's lowered his bow a fraction, and the muscles in Bruce's shoulders have unclenched, relief plainly visible on his face. Tony, for all that she's vulnerable and lacking a suit, would have done the same sort of thing, if she'd landed in this situation at home--she might have gotten there first in _this_ dimension, too, if Steve hadn't been hovering over her so carefully.

Now that the worst of the tension's been defused, there's a pregnant pause while all present parties quietly digest this new information, eyeing each other suspiciously.

"...It's three in the morning," Natasha observes mildly a few seconds later with an aura of heavy judgement, successfully breaking the spell. The knives in her hands have vanished to god only knows where on her person (she's wearing _leggings_ and a _sweater_ right now, for Christ's sake; Tony honestly doesn't know how the woman does it). 

With a loud and equally unimpressed sigh, Clint snaps his bow closed and replaces the arrow in his quiver, shaking his head. "Well, false alarm," the archer declares, sliding off the vantage point he's found on some minuscule ledge with a roll of his eyes and shoulders that says he thinks this has all been a complete waste of his time. "Stand down and unclench your butt-cheeks, folks."

"Sorry for the trouble," Doctor Strange offers somewhat apologetically from his own corner of the roof, looking a little bemused at the quick turnaround. "I just wanted to take a quick look at the portal site--duck in and duck out. Didn't think I'd activate the night guard." Contrition and amusement war in his eyes as he watches everybody else shift around and grumble, the team going from visibly on-edge to visibly annoyed in even less time than it took them to be ready. 

"Nah, it's not your fault; couldn't have known we'd be up here," Man-Tony dismisses with a wave of his hand, casually forgiving the trespassing. 

"Starks keep irregular hours," Steve adds blithely, glancing at Tony over his shoulder with a knowing glint in his eye that makes her remember the many, many times he's come to fetch her from the workshop in the wee hours of the morning. She blinks back at him obliviously.

"...So I'd gathered," Doctor Strange replies, his smile pleasant but subdued. An aura of mystery surrounds him. 

Bruce, ever the voice of sanity and reason among them, removes his glasses in the curious silence that follows and offers to the general assemblage, "So what now?"

"Sorry, could we take this conversation someplace a little more comfortable?" Tony interjects, stepping forward to lean her cheek casually against Steve's bicep as everybody's attention shifts to her. "Not that I don't love hanging out on busy rooftops at 3 AM, but it's getting kind of cold and I have gravel dust in places I'd really rather not think about, so. I feel as though a couch might go a long way towards reducing the current tensions we're experiencing--namely, the tensions in my _back._ "

"Sounds reasonable," Man-Tony agrees, picking a small piece of gravel out of his own clothing and flicking it off idly into some shadowy corner of the roof. He looks back at the rest of the party, whose eyes are on him, and cocks his head jauntily towards the elevator. "Let's move this party down to the lounge, shall we?"

"Fine by me," Doctor Strange agrees, glancing between the two of them with an undisguised fascination. Tony tosses her dusty hair and ignores the unwanted, somewhat unsettling attention he's giving her--them.

To the lounge it is, then.

 

 

The elevator ride that follows is both awkward and cramped. Man-Tony's elevator may be 1.5 times larger than Tony's, but it still isn't quite big enough to accomodate seven grown superheroes and one mystery wizard comfortably. In addition to the physical discomfort, Tony (who finds herself pressed possessively between Steve's warm side and the wall, because Steve a) refuses to let his guard down around an unknown, even if that agent is a teleporting magical sorcerer who may be the answer to their problems, and b) is still being _really weird_ about Tony and Not-Steve) has to keep her jaw clenched tightly to prevent herself from butting in to the conversation at inappropriate times and asking the Doctor questions like 'So, do you know Nicolas Flamel?' or 'Is Hogwarts really as impressive as it looks in the movies?' Her teeth grind against each other while Doctor Strangelove and Man-Tony--who bizarrely enough appear to have totally hit it off--make small talk about expensive watches. Her only comfort is in knowing that Clint's probably doing the same thing.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Tony manages _not_ to interject with any untimely and potentially offensive Harry Potter references, and maintains at least the _illusion_ of composure during the brief but somehow painfully long trip down from the roof. The veneer of dignity she's given the team lasts about until they're all filing out into the lounge, and then her counterpart decides it's time to _really_ open his fat mouth and completely ruins her efforts on their collective behalf.

"Well, Mr. Potter, it's not Hogwarts, but welcome to our humble muggle common room," Man-Tony declares after exiting in the lead, gesturing widely to the lounge proper as they all make their way inside. Doctor Strange seems amused.

"Oh, for _fuck's sake,_ " Tony explodes frustratedly as the elevator doors slide smoothly shut behind her. Everyone but Clint and her counterpart starts at the outburst. Natasha's eyebrows flick up and Bruce's hand jerks reflexively to his chest (Tony's probably going to kill him someday).

"I was doing _so well_ holding off on Harry Potter jokes," Tony complains, ignoring all of these things and stomping angrily into the room, "and then _you_ shove your size seven foot in your mouth and _ruin_ my efforts with one that's _not even good--_ "

"Size _seven?_ " her counterpart interrupts indignantly. Of course that's the thing that most offends him.

"Alright, Stark and Stark," Not-Steve interjects drily, cutting off their banter before it can get out of control, "If we could keep the chatter to a minimum, please." His expression is good-humored, but his eyes are serious and firm. Tony scowls and looks away: after his tone on the roof, she's not feeling very charitably towards him right now.

"We _do_ have a guest," Natasha offers blandly, propping her hip casually against the arm of a lounge chair and watching the room like a cat surveying its domain. Clint, who's perched on the back of this armchair, says nothing, but looks vaguely amused--presumably because he considers himself too mature to express his annoyance the way Tony does.

"No, no--please, feel free," Doctor Strange suddenly insists, hastily interjecting before Tony or Tony can protest. "Don't stop on my account."

Tony's eyebrows jump up into her hairline. That sort of good-humored, even eager response is so incongruous with the imposing, grandiose way the man looks, Tony can't help but feel surprised. With his severe, well-groomed features, his ornate archaic clothing, and his austere, mysteriously fluttering cape, Tony would _never_ have pegged Doctor Strangr for someone with a good sense of humor--let alone a _Stark_ sense of humor. He seemed friendly, sure, but she'd expected him to react to a Harry Potter reference with outright scorn, or at least the tired annoyance of somebody who hears that sort of thing a lot. 

Tony is happy to find herself pleasantly surprised, and cocks her head to peer at the guy with renewed interest, reevaluating her previous opinion of him in light of this interesting exchange.

"Fellow wizards aren't big on pop culture?" Tony tosses out casually, noticing for the first time the jaunty tilt to one of his brows and the laugh lines worn near the corners of his mouth. It's a shot in the dark, a guess, but any information is better than none.

Doctor Strange snorts and gives Tony a small, almost wry smile in response.

"Oh, you have _no_ idea," he confirms cryptically, but that little tidbit of information he divulges confirms one thing Tony's been suspecting after hearing his title: he's not the only sorcerer making magic in the world.

How very _interesting._

"Glad we tickle your funny bone, Doctor," Man-Tony cuts in, hands in his pockets, "but for Cap's sake, and maybe for the sake of our collective sleep schedules--" Bruce's jaw cracks helpfully on a yawn. "--We probably _should_ get down to business."

"We need to discuss how you plan on getting the two of us home," Steve agrees firmly from where he's standing at Tony's elbow, as usual. His blue eyes are serious and solid.

"And why we're here at all," Tony adds impulsively, glancing up at Steve, because she _knows_ he won't like that contribution. Sure enough, the look he shoots her is sharp and tinged with warning, recalling their earlier conversation on the roof. Tony tries her best to tell him with her eyes that just she can't help herself: if there's a _reason_ for them being here, any reason at all, Tony _needs_ to know what it is. It's been eating at her since she realized what a shit card this world has been dealt.

Doctor Strange definitely doesn't miss their exchange; when Tony looks back at him, his eyes are flickering between them with an eerie, unsettling sense of perceptiveness Tony usually only sees from Clint. If he's able to parse the subtext, however, he doesn't comment--instead, he shrugs and takes a seat near Natasha and Clint on one of the lounge's leather couches, tilting his head as his cloak settles out across the armrest.

"Well, first off, I can't tell you why you're here. If there _is_ a 'why,'" he tells them, sinking into Man-Tony's expensive furniture as if he's sat in it a million times. "Whatever or whoever sent you here could have had no reasons, or any reason at all," he explains, lifting one hand apologetically.

"And you're sure there's no way to investigate that?" Tony presses, stepping forward with her fingers twitching compulsively at her side.

"Without meeting the caster or seeing the spell? No," Doctor Strange says confidently, his expression almost apologetic. His eyes flicker down to Tony's side, and Tony realizes her hand has tightened into a fist. She takes a breath, steadying herself, and forces her hand to relax. _Calm down._

"Okay. Well, it was worth a shot," Tony mutters, closing her eyes and lifting one hand to her temple as her headache rears its ugly head, a wave of pain pulsing through her as she sways back from the couch. Steve takes her other hand, and she leans against him, steadying herself. 

"If they used a relic, that would also factor in," Strange mutters to himself suddenly, frowning; his eyes grow distant as he considers the additional possibilities.

"And a 'relic' is...?" Clint drawls when no further clarification is forthcoming. 

"Oh. Sorry, of course," Doctor Strange says, blinking as he drifts out of his own thoughts. 

"The human body's too weak to maintain a lot of powerful magic," he explains, glancing around the room at all of them. "So relics--objects--are made to do the work, instead. The relic holds the magic, and the user wields it."

"So why does that change the game?" Man-Tony asks before she can, leaning up against a pillar. 

"Relics...usually have a specific use, or purpose," the Doctor elaborates after a moment, his nose wrinkling like he's not used to explaining these things and isn't sure how to put this in terms that mere mortals will understand. "For example, boots that let you walk on air, a pendant you can use to manipulate time... that sort of thing. So, someone could have used a relic to send you to another universe, but off the top of my head, I can't think of one that'd do it." He lifts his hands in a shrug.

"But we don't necessarily _know_ it was a relic that did this," Bruce clarifies carefully, frowning in that way he does when he's chewing through a puzzle that he hasn't quite worked out yet. 

"It may have been a spell," Doctor Strange allows in a tone that says he doesn't find that very likely.

"But you think whoever did this used a relic," Tony's counterpart guesses, once again proving that he thinks along exactly the same lines she does.

Doctor Strange glances at him approvingly, which is as good as saying it aloud.

"Considering you need a relic just to travel between _dimensions,_ there's no way a spell used to travel between _universes_ wouldn't use one." He sits back in his seat, a shadow passing over his brow. "I can think of exactly one way to make it possible without, but since your universe _hasn't_ been consumed by darkness, I'm ruling that one out."

Tony and Steve exchange glances.

"So...if you don't know how they got here, how, exactly, do you plan on getting them home?" Clint asks casually, voicing the thought that was in Tony's head.

"That's what I'm here to figure out," Strange says. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. 

That's...really not the answer Tony was hoping to hear.

"Wait--so," Man-Tony begins suspiciously from across the room, "Hang on. What I'm getting from this is that you _don't_ actually know how to help us--help _them,_ " he revises quickly, glancing over at Tony and Steve as if to remind himself that she and him are, indeed, still two separate entities.

"I don't-- _yet,_ " Doctor Strange corrects. "Look, I didn't know what sort of problem I was dealing with until I got here fifteen minutes ago; you can't expect me to show up here with an obscure universal transportation spell ready in hand."

"You can't prescribe a treatment until you know the symptoms," Bruce says reasonably, his own medical training bleeding through. 

" _Exactly,_ " Doctor Strange says, looking grateful for the help. 

"...What I'm hearing is that we aren't going home anytime soon," Tony concludes tiredly, releasing Steve's hand to take hold of his elbow, instead, and pressing the other to her eyes, trying to ward away the creeping sense of hopelessness and fatigue. The headache, which was only coming in waves earlier, has now developed into a full-force pounding, throbbing against her temples like a vice grip of pressure.

"Apparently not," Steve says quietly, and Tony feels his gentle fingers brush over hers in the crook of his elbow. The touch makes her feel a little better, but it doesn't fully erase the heavy ball of disappointment that sits low in her stomach.

"I need to get back to the library," Doctor Strange is saying somewhere in the background as Tony sways towards Steve, leaning on him less because she _wants_ to and more because she suddenly feels like she _needs_ to. Sounds of rustling come from Doctor Strange's direction as he rises from the couch, sounds that are echoed around the room as others follow his lead, bodies following the shift in conversation as the Doctor clearly prepares to leave. 

"The sooner I start going through spell books, the sooner I'll find it," he's saying, voice moving from the foreground to somewhere over to her left. Tony can't really hear him over the strange, staticky noise rushing in her ears.

"Tony?" Steve asks, his worried voice nearly drowned out by the sound of what, based on feeling, would seem to be an angry ocean sloshing around inside Tony's head. "Are you okay?"

 _Nope,_ Tony thinks faintly as her grip on Steve's arm weakens. Tony, for the second time in as many hours, feels a dizzying sense of vertigo.

Tony's vaguely aware of _noise_ and _things happening_ as her vision blurs and the world begins to spin but it all seems like it's happening in distant slow motion. She sways, once, like a stalk of wheat in the wind, before her balance gives out and her legs buckle underneath her.

Through the haze, there are shouts, but Tony's down for the count and can't hear anything more than the sound of her own pulse rushing between her ears, that strange, ocean-y sound like windy static rising and obscuring everything else, whiting out her vision as she crumples to the floor. The only thing she's aware of is the strong, firm touch of an arm around her back, grounding her. Then, many strong but gentle hands are suddenly there, reaching and cradling Tony's limbs as she reels. She feels a hot wash of fear as they lower her to what she knows must be the floor, even if she, Tony, has lost all sense of gravity, everything spinning and spinning. 

The hands pull away, and Tony, who feels like the world is doing somersaults around her person, panics for a moment and reaches out blindly for the ground, surprised when she encounters a familiar-feeling arm, instead. She grabs onto it desperately all the same, clinging to it gratefully like an anchor in the storm.

When the storm calms and Tony's head slows its spinning, some endless amount of time that's probably a few seconds but feels like hours later, her vision clears enough that she sees the limb her nails have been digging desperately into is Steve's right forearm. She immediately knows, without checking, that his other arm is the one carefully supporting the curve of her back. 

Tony releases her death-grip on his skin, and moves her hands, dizzily, onto the bent knee underneath that he's been using to support them. Steve's right arm shifts away to give her space, and Tony tries, weakly, to lift her head, but is immediately overcome by another wave of vertigo. She sucks in a breath and bows forward again, bracing herself over the shelf of Steve's thigh; his left arm follows her down, cradling her back as he murmurs something soothingly over the buzzing in Tony's ears. She presses her forehead into the unfamiliar fabric of his borrowed sweatpants and heaves through breath after breath, eyes blinking rapidly against the tide of dizziness washing over her like a sea. She feels Steve's left hand stroking gently over her back, and focuses on trying not to vomit all over his leg.

"...The last time she drank anything?" a man's voice is asking someone quietly once the worst of the feeling passes, the outside world finally audible again now that the rushing water between her ears has quieted to a lull.

"Had whiskey, earlier," she croaks carefully into Steve's leg, "Brandy." Because she might not be able to move her head, but if anyone's going to be talking about Tony Stark's health it's Tony Stark.

"Whiskey?" Natasha's gentle voice queries mildly somewhere to her left, the same time as Steve sighs wearily, "Oh, Tony..."

"'S fine," Tony mutters, pressing her forehead harder into the firm muscle of Steve's thigh, resolved to wait this time before she tries to move again, lest she trigger another bout of nausea. "There was work to be done, so."

"Is she alright?" Steve--no, _Not-_ Steve asks someone lowly, his voice sending a shiver down her spine when she realizes it's full of what Tony recognizes as familiar concern-- _too_ familiar. 

Maybe Steve isn't wrong to be so wary of him, if _that's_ the kind of undertone Tony's hearing in his voice.

"'M fine," Tony croaks to Steve's sweatpants, and to the room at large. "Happens." Now that she's becoming more confident in her faculties, she begins to roll her face surreptitiously against his clothing, wiping the perspiration away from her skin while simultaneously testing her current limits.

"She's fine," Tony hears Bruce confirm with mild amusement, close by and to her left. "She's just overworked." There's a rustling noise as he rises up from the floor next to her--apparently everyone's hanging out to her left, which makes sense, since Steve's taking up the entirety of the right.

"Get her a sandwich and a Gatorade and she'll be back to normal," Doctor Strange adds from about the same area as Bruce. Two doctors here to tend to her momentary physical embarrassment; Tony's such a lucky woman.

"Are you wiping your sweat on me?" Steve asks suspiciously above her, his discreet murmur sounding both amused and distinctly unimpressed.

"No," Tony lies blatantly as she finishes drying off her forehead, giving up the pretense of subtlety: it's not her fault these pants make such an excellent sweat rag; she didn't give them to him, after all. Feeling brave enough to test her limits, Tony turns her head gently to the right and cracks open her eyes enough to squint up at Steve's face. She's sadly unable to keep herself from smirking when they finally do make eye contact.

On the surface, Steve looks long-suffering, but after a few moments, he cracks, and the twinkle in his eye and the twitch at the corners of his mouth give him away. He shakes his head anyway to maintain the illusion and says gravely, with an air of fake disappointment, "You're a mess, Tony."

"Yes, but I'm _your_ mess," Tony retorts sweetly, reaching around his leg for the hand she's not currently keeping imprisoned and swatting his thigh with the other. "Now help me up, soldier."

 _Maybe_ don't _give Steve a boner in front of the entire team, Stark,_ Tony's inner Clint comments snidely, because everyone on the team knows that Tony likes to call Steve 'soldier' in the bedroom, and no one on the team can appreciate the way Steve reacts when she dirty talks to him in public places. Tony smiles to herself, remembering many memorable reactions and scoldings, and ignores the twinge that pinches beneath her breastbone when no one in the room around them says a thing. 

Steve carefully shifts his body to be more accommodating, helping to support Tony's unsteady muscles as she attempts to assume a more dignified posture. Once she manages to sit up out of the protective cradle he's formed around her, she blinks the small amount of static from her vision, and is startled to see just how much close, personal attention her little fainting spell actually got her.

To her left, Man-Tony rises from his knees to follow Doctor Strange, who's standing a little ways away, speaking quietly with Bruce. Clint and Natasha are standing at Tony's 11 o' clock, peering down at her carefully. Natasha's face is cool and stoic, as usual, but something in Clint's smile promises Tony's going to be getting shit for this later.

Other Steve stands near the two of them, hovering awkwardly in front of Clint's left shoulder. His familiar-yet-unfamiliar blue eyes are still full of concern, and his hands twitch involuntarily when Steve starts to ease her up to her feet, conflict clouding his face, as if he wants to come over and help but knows it wouldn't be welcome--knows that it isn't his place. It sends a weird, wobbly feeling of guilt fluttering through Tony's heart and down into her stomach, and she finally looks away, unable to keep watching him when he looks so sad and troubled. 

(She doesn't see Clint place a comforting hand on the Captain's shoulder, or the soft, sympathetic look that Natasha gives him when no one's looking.) 

Tony swallows against the heavy feeling in her throat, and focuses instead on the feeling of Steve's big, warm hands as they shift carefully across her skin.

With Steve's strength and a little bit of patience, together, they return her to her feet (the caveat being that Tony's still supported by his grip). She's wobbly as a colt, but she at least feels like she possesses some modicum of dignity when she tells Doctor Strange goodbye.

"Sorry you had to see that," she apologizes. He snorts and shrugs it off.

"It's fine," he says, mouth quirking wryly before he adds, "I used to work at a hospital; I've seen it all."

"Thanks for all your help," Steve says to him, purely and utterly serious. Ahh, the sincerity: it's one of those things Tony loves about Steve, among his many other positives.

"No problem," Doctor Strange replies, smiling. Then, his attention turns back from Steve to her.

"Have fun in your library," she tells him when her eyes meet his.

"Go eat a sandwich," Strange quips drily, his eyes crinkling subtly at the corners. "Doctor's orders. I'll be back when I know more," he tells the group at large. Then, he turns, cape billowing majestically, to face the empty half of the room.

With a fluid motion of his hands, a bright, sparking portal opens before them above the glossy floor. Beyond its fiery borders, it appears to lead into the hallway of some well-appointed mansion. Strange smiles once more at all of them, tips his head, and with that, he and his voluminous cape stride through the open center of the circular portal, which spirals quickly closed behind him before vanishing with one last fizzing pop.

"Well, that went well," Man-Tony announces to no one in particular.

"I'm going back to bed," says Clint, bow and quiver still slung over his shoulder as he troops unceremoniously over towards the elevator, which JARVIS opens for him without being asked. "Anybody else?" he asks the room at large with a pointedly raised eyebrow.

Natasha, without speaking, grasps the sleeve of Bruce's pajamas and begins to tow him towards the exit. The Hulk puts up a token protest, but gives up soon enough and joins the Wonder Twins in the lift with an air of weary resignation. 

"Coming, Cap?" Clint asks once they're aboard, to Tony's surprise. Not-Steve seems surprised, too, for a moment, then smiles a bit, shaking his head.

"If you insist," he says, joining the others in the elevator. Clint claps him on the arm, which is...strange. 

Not-Steve turns back around, and he and Tony make eye contact. 

"Enjoy your sandwich," he says, smiling neutrally. Tony ignores the weird flip her stomach gives when he says it.

"Sir yes sir," she says instead, acting as if nothing is amiss. 

"Remember to eat tonight, Stark," Natasha says before the elevator doors close, raising one well-shaped eyebrow threateningly. 

"Which one of us?" Man-Tony asks as Tony raises an eyebrow. 

" _Both_ of you," Clint says seriously, pointing an accusatory finger back into the room. His eyes sear into them like LASERs. "Or you'll wake up to being waterboarded by Gatorade." 

And with that, JARVIS must decide it's time to end this conversation. Tony risks letting go of Steve's hand to waggle her fingers in a wave, which Clint returns sarcastically as the elevator doors slide smoothly shut.

"Sandwich," Steve says very firmly just above Tony's shoulder, re-grasping her hand in his. "Then, sleep."

"You're a man of few words tonight, darling-- _agh,_ " Tony says, as she tries to turn (with Steve's help) and promptly trips over her own ankle. Steve, after they recover, stares down at her wordlessly for a moment, then gets that look in his eye that means he's about to do something that Tony might not enjoy.

"What are you--" Tony begins suspiciously, then cuts herself off with a yelp when Steve, without any warning, scoops her up neatly from standing to a bridal carry before she can so much as protest. The change in positions leaves Tony reeling for a moment, but the second she's recovered she smacks his pec indignantly.

"Jeez; warn a gal next time, will you?" Tony complains, peering up at her fiancé with a well-deserved scowl. "I _am_ experiencing vertigo, here--y'know, a condition that's specifically aggravated by _sudden changes in posture?_ "

"If I'd warned you, would you have let me do it?" Steve asks in that calm and amiable Steve way he has, utterly unrepentant. Tony scowls and narrows her eyes.

"That's beside the point," she asserts as he begins walking towards the kitchen. "What if I had fought you? I have six black belts; I could have stabbed you in the eye with my fingernails. What if, with all your supersoldier strength, you had--wait. Hang on a second," Tony says suddenly, shoving at Steve's left shoulder to get him to turn around once she realizes something very important.

"Hey, Patriarchy," she barks at her counterpart, who jumps guiltily where he'd been trying to slink out of the room without anyone noticing. "You heard Scully and Mulder. You've been down in the lab as long as I have, so if I'm being forced to ingest comestibles right now, I think you should be, too. Fair's only fair, after all."

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who swooned like a Disney princess," he points out loudly, shifting uncomfortably under the unexpected attention he's now garnered from both remaining parties in the room. "I'm a grown man; I can fend for myself."

"Stop being a bitch about it and come eat with us," Tony orders over Steve's elbow, "before an angry Pepper finds you later and force-feeds you something you hate." She gives him the flat stare of I-see-through-your-bullshit, and that is what finally does it: his shoulders sag, and he throws his hands up in one last expression of protest in his exasperated surrender.

"Okay, fine, _mom,_ " he complains as he crosses the room to join them, rolling his eyes as if having someone make you a sandwich is the most annoying thing in the entire world. "Have it your way."

"Shut up, before I make you eat your vegetables," Tony says as they mount the three steps to the upper landing, their feet echoing on the hardwood floors. "Or make Steve make you eat your vegetables. Either way, come quietly, or someone's gonna force-feed you."

"Do _I_ get a say in this?" Steve asks her mildly, faint amusement in his eyes as he watches this entire exchange.

"No," Tony declares. "Wait--yes. You can choose what kind of vegetables it'll be," she decides.

"Are there any options that _don't_ end in someone force-feeding me?" Man-Tony says, griping on as they approach the kitchen.

"That'll be the one where you voluntarily eat a sandwich," Steve answers for her drily, raising an eyebrow at her counterpart with his dad face on. Tony _loves_ the dad face.

"You've corrupted him," Man-Tony says in mock horror, staring at the pair of them like they're a science experiment gone terribly wrong.

"I've _improved_ him," Tony corrects proudly, patting Steve's bicep like the well-pleased partner she is. The man in question looks down at her, his eyes twinkling in amusement. "Hey--watch my ankles," Tony warns as they approach the narrow entryway into the kitchen, craning her neck to see over her fiancé's enormous triceps.

"Watching your ankles," Steve confirms as he sidesteps neatly into the kitchen doorway, safely guarding her tarsi from further abuse.

"Thank you, darling," Tony says, patting his hand obligingly. Steve smiles at her fondly.

Man-Tony makes a retching noise as he follows them into the kitchen. "Disgusting," he tells them emphatically, a twist in his nose like just he's smelled something awful, "absolutely disgusting."

" _You're_ disgusting," Tony retorts intelligently as Steve sets her down gently on a barstool, because no matter what Steve or Pepper might say, she's allowed to act like a five-year-old sometimes.

"Alright, kids; what do we want on our sandwiches," Steve asks drily, opening the fridge with the air of someone who's long since accepted he's the only adult around here.

"Mayonnaise," Tony declares in a tone that brooks no argument.

Steve turns and looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "And?"

"I don't know, Steve; you figure out the rest," Tony decides, folding forward over the countertop with her chin in her hands. "I'm an invalid; I can't be expected to make decisions."

Steve takes this behavior with his usual amount of grace, and wordlessly turns his raised eyebrow to Not-Tony.

"I think there's some leftover chicken in there," her counterpart says. "Or that may have been last month; I'm not really sure," he adds, shrugging like he can't be bothered to remember these things.

"I believe the chicken in question is, indeed, current," JARVIS offers drily above them, right as Steve makes an affirmative noise and pulls a Tupperware container from the fridge's upper shelves.

"Awesome, I thought I remembered that correctly," Man-Tony says delightedly, visibly pleased with himself.

"JARVIS, give the man a gold star," Tony says absently as she examines the grain of the granite. It's nice, clearly something high-brow and imported--a little bit darker than what Tony has in the kitchen at home.

"A gold star, miss?" JARVIS queries curiously as Steve closes the bread drawer with his foot, polite confusion clear in his voice at the request.

Steve turns to look at her and stills, two loaves of multigrain in his hands. Tony's heart sinks in her chest behind the arc reactor, and she swallows against a sudden, unexpected dryness in her throat, blinking back moisture that wasn't in her eyes a moment ago. She risks a glance at Steve and is immediately glad she did, because the solemn, knowing sadness she sees on his face matches the ache she feels in her heart right now.

"It's nothing, J," she mumbles quietly, pressing her eyes into her palms as her fingertips scratch through the edges of her hair, and focuses on ignoring the homesickness threatening to rise up in her throat like bile. "Just a thing we do as a gag, back home. Nothing you need to worry about."

"Is chicken salad good with both of you?" Steve asks then, before the moment can stretch on too long and become an uncomfortable silence. Tony's grateful for the interjection--grateful just for his presence, frankly. 

She's thought about it a couple times since their arrival, but she doesn't know how she'd be coping, if Steve hadn't shown up here, too. She'd probably still be shackled to a bed.

"Sounds good to me," Man-Tony agrees casually, eyes flicking back and forth between them. He doesn't push the subject, just wordlessly lets it go, a courtesy for which Tony is desperately grateful. She doesn't think she could handle any more painful reminders of all the things--the _people_ \--that are absent, right now.

"That makes two of us," Tony says, forcing a smile onto her face in an attempt to revive the levity that's been sucked out of her, and leans back in her chair like someone who _doesn't_ miss their home so much it feels like they could stop breathing.

With that, the last of the awkwardness hanging in the room finally dissipates. Man-Tony takes out a StarkPad from somewhere, and Steve gets started bustling around the kitchen, clunking through the new tower's cabinets and drawers with his brow minutely furrowed in concentration. Tony watches him putter around the island with a sense of fondness, her mind soothed by the familiar scene of Steve busying himself with cooking something or other. She watches him work, and while she does, she reaches up and quietly rubs her knuckles against the lower part of her sternum, trying to ignore the hole in her heart that doesn't seem to be going away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony eats a sandwich. Steve is still being weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has not yet been proofread in its entirety, but I'm a lot happier with it than I usually am when I first post a chapter, so I'm posting it anyway. I will go back and make minor edits later, catch any typos that managed to slip the noose, but this is pretty much its final form. Also, this chapter contains fucking! WOO! Actually, this chapter is mostly fucking, tbh. Anyway: as always, thanks for reading <3
> 
> EDIT: Alright, it's ship-shape. As promised, all that's changed are some minor edits; no big structural changes or anything. Enjoy <3

The sandwich is great--of course it is; Steve's sandwiches are always great. The hole in Tony's stomach is soon filled by bread and chicken salad, and Man-Tony, bless his heart, digs up some sports drinks from somewhere deep in the dusty, long-neglected depths of his cupboards. 

"Steve keeps them right at the front, at home," Tony offers observantly, glancing at Steve and thinking of their extensive stock of Powerade. It has its own dedicated cupboard and consumes an entire shelf of the fridge. 

"It's important to stay hydrated, especially after strenuous physical activity," Steve replies seriously, wordlessly handing Tony another bottle. 

"Ooh, baby, say ' _strenuous physical activity_ ' again; you know how it gets me hot," Tony croons, waggling her eyebrows suggestively and leering at her fiancé. Steve stares steadily back at her, unmoved and unimpressed by her cheap shots at seduction (as usual). 

"Drink your Gatorade, Tony," Steve says instead, patently ignoring her poorly executed innuendo. Tony rolls her eyes, but does as he says, sipping slowly at her second bottle even though she's no longer thirsty. She soothes her undamaged ego by reminding herself that it doesn't actually matter at this point how he responds to her cheap shots at seduction: Steve's a sure thing. 

"You know, it would be a real shame if I vomited right now," Man-Tony observes to no one in particular, peering into the depths of his Gatorade as he tilts back in his chair. "As much as I actually enjoyed that sandwich--props, Cap," he adds as an aside, glancing at Steve. Steve raises his eyebrows. "--I have absolutely _no_ desire to have it in my mouth a second time." His bare feet are pressed carelessly against the edge of the countertop, speaking to how relaxed he is. "And I just had the bathrooms cleaned, so."

"That reminds me," Steve contributes as he clears the empty bottles away, tossing them into the recycling chute under the sink (same place it always is). "Where should the two of us plan on staying while we're here?" He shoots Tony a wordless glance, and she raises her eyebrows guilelessly: she woke up on a Hulk-restraint bed. Like she said, she doesn't think he'll kick them out, but she has no idea where he intends to put them while they're taking up his space. 

If he's even thought that far. Actually, upon active consideration, Tony thinks it's safe to guarantee he hasn't thought that far. 

"Hmm?" her counterpart offers eloquently in response to Steve's query, glancing up from his Gatorade. The legs of the barstool wobble, once, before he drops them and his feet back to the floor with a _thud_. 

"Will we be staying in the medical ward, or will we be moving to guest quarters?" Tony clarifies, for expediency. 

The quizzical furrow in her counterpart's brow smooths out immediately, comprehension clearing his features. 

"Oh, sure," he says easily, reaching for the cap to his Gatorade bottle. "If you feel ready to leave medical, I can put you up somewhere nicer." He hops down from his barstool and tilts his head, looking thoughtful. "Actually, I know just the place."

'Just the place' turns out to be down the long hallway off the kitchen. They pass the solitary, dark-stained door that, similarities holding true, should lead to his own private suite. Tony eyes it, and that familiar itch to investigate prickles at her bones, raises goosebumps on her skin, but she resists the urgent pull telling her to satisfy her curiosity and drags her attention to the present as they move on. 

There are three different tidy, well-appointed guest rooms near the end of the hallway, mostly for friends staying in the Tower, and this is where Tony initially assumes her counterpart is leading them. Instead, to her surprise, he stops at the first door past his own. 

The door, unremarkable in appearance, is notable in that it's the only one even remotely proximal to her counterpart's. It's not _that_ close, but the other three rooms are all the way at the end of the hall, well away from the master suite and designed with an obvious emphasis on privacy. Tony is very surprised her counterpart is putting them here, because in Tony's tower, this room is strictly Pepper's. The only other person who uses it is Bucky, and occasionally Bucky's soulmate, and that's only after a seriously exhausting mission or a night of particularly heavy drinking. No one else, not even Rhodey, stays in this particular suite. 

It's the _best friend suite_. 

"This okay?" her counterpart--Tony--asks them, raising his eyebrows at her specifically. It feels like a loaded question. 

"Sure," Tony says, staring back at the man with eyes that are probably the size of dinnerplates. She glances over her shoulder at Steve, just to confirm, and he shrugs gamely, obviously not as painfully aware of the subtext like she is. 

Tony's still not really sure what to make of it as her counterpart keys in the passcode, and the off-kilter, strangely confused feeling stays with her as they follow him inside, moving from the hardwood hallways to thick, plush carpet. She wanders further into the suite as her counterpart begins talking to Steve, telling him something about passcodes and privacy locks and JARVIS helping them access things. Tony's already more than capable of navigating the Tower on her own, so she doesn't bother paying any attention to the conversation and strays out of the room, instead. 

Their voices fade behind her as she drifts aimlessly through the suite's small-ish den, past the long, floor-to-ceiling windows. Tony stares out at the New York skyline and tries to actually _look_ at everything she's seeing, but her heart really isn't in it. 

She's struggling to figure out her counterpart's motivations for putting them here, in this specific suite. Maybe it's because her body's still devoting most of its resources to digesting the chicken sandwich, but Tony finds herself stuck in a strange, senseless feedback loop of confusion, her brain running through endless circles of logic. 

Why put them in the Pepper suite when there are three other perfectly good rooms just down the hall? There are plenty of reasons, of course, but none of them really seem sufficient: to keep an eye on them (unlikely), as a show of trust (unnecessary; he just helped her fix the armor), an olive branch (ha)...

Somehow, she gets the feeling she's missing ( _or avoiding_ , her traitorous mind whispers to itself) the obvious conclusion. 

Tony sighs and deflates minutely, bracing a hand on her hip. She scrubs a hand through her hair tiredly, already weary of this pointless, self-induced thought puzzle. It's already obvious she's not going to figure it out without some help. She'll just have to bounce it off Steve later.

She removes her fingers from the base of her skull, looks down at her hand, and grimaces: her fingers are covered in a combination of sweat, concrete dust, and hair oil, the build-up of at least a day's worth of workshop, travel, and battle time, all spent without bathing. Tony becomes aware of a familiar uncomfortable, all-over itching sensation caused by the fine layer of grime coating her skin--which is easy enough to ignore under stress, but intolerable now that other pressing needs are taken care of and she's got a moment to actually _do_ something about it. Tony wipes the slime on her hand onto her equally disgusting jeans, and wrinkles her nose. It's time to figure out the laundry situation in this universe, and, additionally, time to find the bathroom and see what sort of ridiculous shower her man-self has installed in this place. 

(Tony straightens her shoulders, and very maturely resists the sudden, utterly _inane_ urge she has to smell her own armpit.)

After only a few moments poking around, Tony finds the bathroom. She steps through an open doorway, and soft lights come up, illuminating the room. 

It's a good thing she's alone, because her first view of the bathroom is such an exciting sight, Tony makes a bright, high-pitched sound that's entirely inappropriate for a woman her age. 

Her gleeful squeal echoes off of the tiled walls. Pepper has to have had a heavy hand in designing this room: Tony leans towards granite and chrome, especially for fixtures, but this place is a glass and ceramic affair, light, airy, and open. 

The room is vaguely triangular, and the bathroom fixtures are all laid out accordingly: there are two sinks recessed in a cream stone counter on the right, and the wood of the cabinets beneath them is light, beige in color. The bath rugs and towels hanging on the walls match the cabinets. There is a small room to the left of the sinks, and though the door to it is closed, it's probably safe to say it houses the toilet. The shower, as expected, is luxurious: it occupies almost the entire left-hand corner of the room, glass-walled and tiled cream, large enough to easily fit three people with room to spare. 

But the shower is not what makes Tony most excited. No, that honor is exclusively reserved for the soaking tub. 

Tony's always had a lady-boner for soaking tubs, but this thing is the soaking tub of fantasies. It's so big, it almost feels insulting to call it a tub: _"Roman bath"_ or _"small pool"_ seem like more appropriate descriptions. It stretches all the way from the toilet room to the shower, consuming the entire far corner of the bathroom as well as a sizable portion of the central space. Tony's too excited to do more than approximate measurements, but the side nearest to her is probably ten feet long, and the shape is roughly an isosceles triangle, so without worrying too much about the extra bits of the polygon, the soaking tub has a surface area of roughly 25 square feet. 

There is a second door into the bathroom on the wall where she came in. Tony opens it. It leads into the foyer, where her counterpart and Steve still stand. They seem to have moved past formalities and begun chatting, if the atmosphere is any indication; they fall suspiciously silent when the door opens and look over at her. 

"Finished exploring?" Steve asks, posture loose and easy. Her counterpart says nothing, just carries on casually occupying space. He's watching all of this with a suspicious air of amusement. 

Tony eyes them both narrowly for a moment before she replies to Steve's question. "Yes. I'm filthy, so I'm getting in the shower. I assume my Lancôme products are gone?" she adds, looking at her counterpart.

"I can bring you some of Pepper's stuff to use, if you'd like," he offers apologetically. "I think she uses Lancôme."

"Yeah, that's fine," Tony says, waving it away as she backs up back into the bathroom, "I've used my fair share of foreign bath products." Man-Tony looks nostalgic, and Steve raises one wry eyebrow. 

Then, Tony starts undoing her fly. 

"OKAY, bath products!" her man-self immediately says loudly, turning on his heel as Steve chokes on his own saliva and shock. Within seconds, her counterpart has beaten a hasty retreat, excusing himself from the room while Steve is still recovering. The door to the suite closes loudly behind him. Meanwhile, Tony finishes unzipping her jeggings and begins shimmying them down her thighs. 

"You know, I think that's the fastest I've seen him move since we got here," she observes, peeling her pants free from her calves and shucking them off. She lifts the grimy, bloodstained material up for inspection, turning the denim in her hands and wrinkling her nose. "JARVIS, where's the laundry chute?"

"In the wall, between the two doors and the towel racks, Miss," JARVIS replies blandly, with undertones of disapproval thick in his voice. Tony rolls her eyes at his stuffiness and turns back towards the bathroom, holding her pants at arm's length. Given enough time, Tony thinks they could probably acquire sentience. 

" _Tony._ " 

Tony stops and glances back over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, Steve?"

Steve's still standing in the foyer. When she looks back at him, he's flushed all the way to the neck. His face is pinched with a combination of indignation, which Tony had expected, and anger, which... she hadn't. His eyes are bright and burning with something Tony doesn't instantly recognize, and a shiver of unease runs down her spine. 

"I'm hopping in the shower," she declares again, speaking loudly to cover her sudden nervousness. "You're welcome to join me, obviously; it's more than big enough for two people." Then she hurries inside, like a coward, and shuts the door to the bathroom.

It's only after Tony's naked and standing underneath the stream of hot water that she realizes she should've waited for Man-Tony to come back with her things. She stares at herself in the mirror above the sinks across the room for a long moment, water sluicing through her hair and down her back, and reflects wearily upon her own stupidity. 

Just as she's getting around to wondering what the best way to retrieve Pepper's bath products might be, the closed door to the bathroom opens. Tony, panicking, sees only the fingers of a very familiar hand before she's turning quickly on her heel to stare at the tiled shower wall, her heart pounding in her chest beneath the arc reactor. 

_What the hell am I doing,_ she thinks, even as she reaches up and starts jerkily scraping the filth from her body beneath the flow of the water, just to give her hands something to do. 

Soft sounds are coming from the bathroom outside the shower, almost inaudible under the sound of the stream on the tiles and the pound of Tony's heartbeat in her ears. Her anxiety only increases as the long, unbroken quiet stretches on, but she doesn't dare turn around. Instead, she stands there and carries on washing herself restlessly underneath the stream, even after water alone ceases to be effective. 

Then, the door to the shower opens with a soft _snick_. Tony's anxiety ratchets up another several notches, her heart thudding against the arc reactor in her breastbone like a mallet. Two feet step softly onto the shower tiles, and the door shuts quietly. The sound echoes forebodingly in the space, like the turn of a key in a lock. 

Something plastic scrapes against the stone of the bench as it's set down, and Tony shivers once, unable to move from beneath the hot spray of the shower. Then, there's a small pause. 

There's a soft, wet sound as a foot lifts from the floor of the shower, followed by a quiet smack as it sets down closer, moving in to a wetter part of the tile. The sound repeats, and Tony can feel goosebumps erupting on her skin, followed, inexplicably, by a familiar flutter low in her gut. She stares blindly at the grout between the shower tiles, pinned like a butterfly. She's frozen in place where she stands, waiting. 

Then, without any warning, fingertips brush softly against Tony's spine, between her shoulder blades. She jerks, shoulders drawing back on reflex, flinching up and out of the slight hunch she hadn't even realized she'd assumed. 

Tony shivers heavily as the fingertips drift lightly down, down, trailing over each and every knob of her vertebrae and blazing a trail of arousal over Tony's body until, at last, they reach her tailbone. There, the fingertips pause, lingering, and then at last they withdraw. Tony's spine tingles all along the places where she's been touched, prickling and oversensitive. Her breathing has grown heavier. 

The body behind her shifts, moving in closer. Tony's heart jumps as the air around her tingling back warms with a familiar heat. His breath puffs hot against her neck, and every hair on Tony's body stands on end. Arousal flares low within her, like a Pavlovian reaction. 

"Steve," Tony whispers, like a confession. Her voice is hoarse. She's trembling. 

"Tony," Steve murmurs lowly, his voice less than an inch from her ear. Tony shudders, deep and full-bodied; she bows back, and, like he was waiting, Steve's strong arms lift and close around her. 

His hands pull her to him and Tony goes willingly, melts into his embrace until they're pressed together, back to front, every inch of her wet skin sliding against the hard, warm muscle of his body, held there by the delicious crush of his arms as she arches against him. 

" _Steve,_ " Tony says wretchedly as his lips slide along her skin, his nose brushing up against the sharp underside of her jaw as he pauses to scrape his teeth over the tender skin of her neck, the press just this side shy of biting. 

He's got her propped up on one of his thighs, her legs splayed around his, and Tony is absolutely drenching his skin. She rubs nonsensically against his leg, already babbling and begging and strung up tight as he plays her body like a well-tuned instrument. 

"Steve, Steve _please, please_ Steve," Tony pleads, writhing in his grip and reaching back to grasp at his hair, his neck, his shoulders, any bit of him she can reach in her desperation. She's _aching_ for it, driven wild as one of his hands splays over her stomach, fingers spreading possessively over her skin as the other strokes up the inside of her thigh, so close, so close but _not close enough_. 

"Please what, Tony," Steve asks her calmly, his voice dark, thick, and rich, like molasses. Tony twists in his grip, letting out a little cry of frustration as he fails to give any further. 

" _Please_ fuck me," she begs desperately, nearly frenzied with how much she needs him to do _something_. 

Steve obliges her. One moment, Tony's mostly upright, straddling his thigh, and the next, they're sitting on the shower bench, her in his lap. Tony reaches out and braces her hands against a dry portion of tile wall, her wet palms scrabbling for purchase as he takes hold of her hips. His hands wrap perfectly around her body, spanning the entirety of her sides as his fingertips grip over her hipbones, and he lifts her up effortlessly above him, positioning her carefully over his lap. 

Then, in a beautiful, delicious moment, Steve slides smoothly into her, and Tony gives a moan, loud and long. Her limbs nearly shake with relief as the aching, empty clench within her is filled by him, like a missing piece sliding into place inside her. She quivers like a leaf in his lap for a moment after he bottoms out, unable to do more than absorb the physical sensations as they wash over her. 

Once her trembling has mostly subsided, Steve makes his move. His hands tighten on her hips, fingers clenching around her pelvic bone, and he lifts her again, raising her up slowly before fucking her back down on his cock. 

Tony doesn't fully put together the exact mechanics of what's happening at first, only conscious of the slick slide of him within her as her hips lift and drop, the vice of his perfect hands squeezing around her as her ass brushes against the hot, muscled planes of his lower abdomen. Her muscles tense and her feet scrabble for purchase that they're unable to find, her legs too short to reach the floor from her position on Steve's lap. When her leg slips and bumps awkwardly against his and he doesn't even stutter in his rhythm, Tony suddenly realizes exactly what's happening: Steve's legs and hips aren't moving at all. He's just effortlessly jacking her entire body up and down over his dick, using nothing but his arm strength-- _using her_. The realization sends a hot spike of arousal searing through her like a wildfire. 

"Steve," Tony husks in disbelief--he's _never done this before_. She twists, trying to catch a glimpse of him over her shoulder. Then her eyes meet his, and what she sees in his face in that moment makes her feel as though time has crawled to a halt. 

His gaze bores into her like a brand. His eyes, bright, nearly electric blue in the light, are fixed on her face when she looks at him, burning into hers with an intensity that sends sparks crackling under Tony's skin. Something dark and possessive flickers in his expression as he looks her over, his eyes roving over her body so intently that Tony swears she can feel them blazing a trail upon her skin. 

The moment breaks, and Tony's eyes nearly roll back in her head as they flutter closed. She tosses back her head and gives a full-bodied shudder, her mouth falling open on a moan as she twists helplessly, a wave of static washing over her senses as she writhes sinuously in his grip. Steve gives an answering rumble as her body clenches hot around him, her muscles contracting with pleasure. Tony inhales raggedly as the wave recedes and her muscles begin to tremble, and blinks helplessly against the stars still dotting her vision, her breath stuttering around the endless rise and fall of her own hips. She squirms weakly for a moment, hands and feet searching blindly for purchase before she gives up and gives in, finally relinquishing control. 

She can feel Steve make a deep, low sound of satisfaction when she leans back and arches against him, murmuring words of encouragement that Tony can't hear over the sounds of the ragged, moaning pants he's fucking out of her as she reaches back blindly to touch him. One hand settles on his head, grasping at the soft, thick, gold-spun threads of his hair while the other roves restlessly, stroking in jolts over his face and neck timed by the rise and fall of her hips. She arches her neck against the curve of his collarbone and presses her mouth against his jaw, babbling her pleasure and breathing in the sweet, battle-tinged scent of him. Her currently useless legs splay open on either side of his lap. 

Then, Steve tilts her hips _just_ so on the next downstroke, and Tony's eyes roll back into her head. 

"Ohh my gahhh--Steve, _holy shit_ \--"

Steve, who is a quick study in sex as in everything else, begins relentlessly hammering against that spot. It's a good thing Tony already wasn't doing any work, because after a few strokes of that she very quickly becomes utterly useless, melting back against Steve's chest as her strength gives out under the onslaught, waves of rising pleasure crashing through her body and mind as he slams against that deep place inside her over and over and over again. Her mouth falls open, eyes falling closed as the overwhelming tide of sensations overcomes her. 

When Tony comes, everything in her world goes white. She drifts back to herself to several seconds later, every muscle in her body trembling as Steve bows over her and shudders his way through his own release. She manages to unclench her fingers from where they'd twisted in his hair and pets him weakly as he spills inside her, her fingers limp and trembling. Just that effort has the muscles in her arm shaking violently. 

"I wonder if that was multiple consecutive orgasms rather than just one," Tony says after a while, thinking aloud. It certainly went on long enough. 

Steve pants against her shoulder for a few more seconds, his breath hot and humid as he comes down from his own orgasm. "It felt pretty much continuous," he admits eventually, muttering into her skin. Tony laughs. 

"Well, I'd hate to give you anything less than full credit for your efforts," she replies, twining her noodle-like fingers through his hair. He chuffs affectionately into her shoulder, and Tony floats for a moment as they rest quietly, relishing the warmth of the afterglow. Tony continues to run her hand through Steve's hair, fingering it idly as the wheels of her brain come back online and the gears begin to turn. 

She's frowning thoughtfully to herself by the time Steve nuzzles restlessly against her shoulder. Tony lets her hand drop as he lifts his head, and turns carefully in his lap, ignoring the pang of loss she feels as he slides out of her. 

"So," Tony says conversationally, straddling his thighs and running her nails idly through the hair at the base of Steve's neck, "That was new."

"Yes," he agrees calmly, eyes hooded and dark as he stares sleepily back at her, the red curve of his mouth soft with affection. Tony leans forward and places a gentle, closed-mouth kiss on his lips, admiring the sweep of his golden lashes against his cheek as she withdraws in the moment before his eyes flutter open. 

"Would you rather talk about it now, or after we soap up?" Tony asks fondly, scritching against the nape of his neck and smiling when he arches into it like a cat. 

"Mmm, after," Steve decides, turning his head and giving a gentle nip at her wrist before he visibly turns himself back to the question at hand, straightening up underneath her on the bench. 

Steve reaches behind himself and pulls out a large plastic shower caddy, quirking his eyebrows in amusement when Tony gives the nearly twenty bottles inside of it a disbelieving look. "Our generous host thought I might want something a little less... floral."

"What is this, his entire grooming kit?" Tony asks incredulously, selecting a bottle at random and making a face when it turns out to be beard shampoo. She replaces the bottle in the caddy and eyeing it dubiously, resisting the urge to shake her head. "God, he might as well have given you the whole shower..."

"I believe he was seriously considering it," Steve says, straight-faced, after placing the shower caddy on the ground. His eyes crinkle at the corners and he leans in to give her a kiss, stubble scraping the corners of her mouth. 

"Ugh--well, let's hope he thought to include a razor somewhere in there, because if you keep that carpet on your face growing for much longer you're going to sand off a layer of my skin," Tony complains, rubbing against the spot where his blonde five o' clock shadow had scratched against the tender skin of her face. 

Steve looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, considering. Tony stares back at him, bemused, as the silence stretched on, and feels a flicker of alarm when his eyes begin to glitter mischievously. She leans away in the circle of his arms, giving him a warning glance as he cuts off her escape and slowly pulls her in. 

"Steve, don't you dare--STEVE!"

Tony's torn between laughter and justified, shrieking anger when he leans in to rub his beard all over her face and neck like a giant cat. 

"STEVE, you fucking _shit_ , you piece of hairy garbage--I KNEW I should've dropped you off the helicarrier when I had the chance; fucking-- _stop_ , Steve, for god's sake, it _hurts_ , okay; _STOP--!_ " 

Steve finally does, openly laughing as Tony seethes and fumes wrathfully at his face, intercepting and batting away her flailing, ineffectual punches with easy hands as she swings her tiny fists angrily at his body. 

"Worst fucking soulmate _ever_ , I _swear to god_ ; nobody ever believes me you smug son of a bitch--"

"Tony," Steve says suddenly, catching both her fists and leaning in seriously, his blue eyes twinkling into hers. "I love you."

Tony immediately deflates, anger evaporating in the face of his earnest declaration. She stares at him with a look of disgruntled annoyance, aware that he's blatantly manipulating her weaknesses. 

"Yeah, I love you too, you star-spangled piece of trash," she says, favoring him with a fully deserved look of disgust. She crawls from his lap and points imperiously to the shower caddy. "Now make yourself useful and help me wash my body." 

"Yes, ma'am," Steve drawls, rising from the bench to join her. 

It takes them a couple hours to actually get anything clean, since they keep getting distracted, but eventually, they're toweling each other off on the largest of the suite's plush bathroom rugs, fresh and clean. Tony feels a lot better now that all the grime of the past two days has been washed down the drain. 

"Miss Stark, Captain Rogers," JARVIS says, interrupting the moment. 

Steve looks up from where he's busy toweling off Tony's calf. "Yes, JARVIS?"

"Mister Stark asked me to inform you that Thor has returned," the AI says politely, smoothly relaying the message. 

Tony looks down at her fiancé where he's kneeling on the rug. "Aww, look at that, Steve: he's learning."

Steve raises a sardonic eyebrow. "Gold star."

Tony huffs a laugh, grinning down at her soulmate; he smiles as he finishes drying off her other calf, then rises to his feet. 

"Tell them we'll be right out, JARVIS," Steve says, draping their used towels back over the towel bars. She takes a moment to admire his ass as he reaches for his clothes, which he's left in a neatly folded pile on the counter, and begins pulling them on. Watching him, Tony suddenly realizes something. 

"JARVIS, are my clothes back from the laundry room yet?" she asks, already dreading the answer. Steve freezes with one leg in his sweatpants, eyes meeting hers. 

"Unfortunately not, Miss," JARVIS says apologetically, and Tony closes her eyes, pressing her palms over them with a groan. "I believe there are some bathrobes in the bedroom closet."

"Great," Tony mutters. "Let's go meet the prince of draperies in a bathrobe. Stunning."

"You can wear my shirt, if you want," Steve says seriously, holding the aforementioned garment in his hands like an offering. 

"I'm small, Steve, but I'm not that tiny," Tony says wearily, running a hand through her still-damp hair. "I do appreciate the thought." Eventually, she sighs. "Alright, JARVIS, call Manscape in here; we'll see what we can figure out."

JARVIS does not bother pretending that he doesn't know who 'Manscape' is, which Tony always appreciates. In the silence, Steve gives Tony an odd look. 

"He's probably got something of Pepper's laying around," Tony clarifies, and knows she's correctly interpreted the look on his face when his expression clears and he looks slightly embarrassed. "Steve, _please_ do not start getting jealous of me. Believe me when I say that being jealous of yourself is already enough for me to handle."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve asks as they head out into the bedroom, a frown creeping over his features. 

"It means I don't do well with saying 'no,'" Tony says, picking a robe out of the closet at random. It's white and fluffy, and will work perfectly well; the sleeves are a little long, however, and Tony turns to Steve, holding out a hand wordlessly. 

A knock sounds on the door as Steve begins rolling up her cuff, and her counterpart enters the room. He takes in the scene before him and wordlessly raises his eyebrows. 

"I needed an adult," Tony explains, just as Steve finishes her first sleeve and starts in on the second. "And also, clothes. Steve can only help me with one of those things, so, here we are."

"I see," Man-Tony says, watching as Steve finishes with Tony's other cuff. "Well, I, or rather Pepper, can help with the second, so, follow me. Cap, you're welcome to come too, if you want."

"He should, if for nothing else than for his own peace of mind," Tony interjects, glancing at Steve drily. He looks somewhat disgruntled, but mostly he just rolls his eyes, so Tony knows he can't be too mad. 

"Lead the way," Steve offers, glancing at her counterpart with a long-suffering air. Tony huffs, but follows along behind them anyway when they head out of the guest suite, shaking her head internally. _Men._

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](http://sheepybaa.tumblr.com)


End file.
